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THE HUMAN WILL: 



A SERIES OF POSTHUMOUS ESSAYS ON MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY, 

THE LEGITIMATE OBJECT OF PUNISHMENT, AND 

Tin: POWERS OF THE WILL. 



BY THE LATE 

JAMES POLLARD* ESPY, 

Author of "The Philosophy of Storms," Member of the American Philosophical Society, 
unci Corresponding Member of the National Institute at Washington. 



1867 

^ Washing 



CI NCI NN ATI: 

PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE DIAL, 

NO. Tii W EST T II I K n ST R K BT. 

1860. 







The Dice of God ;ire always loaded. 

— Greek Proverb. 



Hell is the Love-spark that burnetii up the mountain of Iniquity. 

— Mohammed. 



I think that only is real which men love and rejoice in ; not what they 

tolerate, but what they choose ; what they embrace and avow, and not the 

rhe things which chill, benumb and terrify them. 

— /timer son. 



MEMOIR 



James Espy was born on the ninth day of May, 1786, in Washington county, 
Pennsylvania. He was the youngest of ten children, and the seventh son, hav- 
ing been born when his mother was nearly fifty years of age. His parents 
removed to the State of Kentucky, when he was in his fourth year, and settled at 
Lexington. He was born an inquirer. During this journey with his parents 
westward, the boat was shoved suddenly from the Brownsville wharf, and little 
James as suddenly floored. During the rest of the trip down the Ohio, no novel- 
ties could distract his mind from a pertinacious resolution to find out the prin- 
ciple by which he had fallen ; and when some one told him that his centre of gravity 
had been lost, his mind started at once on a voyage of investigation, which 
ceased only with his life. In his earliest school-days, a severe storm blew a 
large tree down on the top of the school-house, breaking the timbers and roof ; 
into the brain of our boy-philosopher, as its proper crucible, the storm fell, and 
there remained until he had wrested its secret. His thirst for knowledge was 
from his childhood insatiable ; and his means being limited, he began whilst yet 
in his teens teaching, during a portion of each year, to pay for the instruction 
received in the Transylvania University of Lexington, where he was graduated 
at the age of twenty-one. During the year following he was invited to Cumber- 
land, Maryland, to take charge of a classical academy of that city, which had 
been newly endowed by the Legislature. His zeal for instructing the 3 T oung was 
such that he soon made it a well-known institution, to which students came from 
every part of the country. Having saved something by this, he went to Bedford, 
and pursued the study of the Law. 

At the age of twenty-seven he was married to Margaret Pollard, of Cumber- 
land, whose maiden-name he assumed, and was ever after known as James Pol- 
lard Espy. He took his bride, who was then only sixteen, to Xenia, Ohio, 
where he resided for four years in the practice of the law. But it became mani- 
fest to him that this profession did not accord with the literary and scientific 
tendencies of his mind; so he was quite ready to accept a call to the classical de- 
partment of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia. Thither he went in the year 
1817, and that city became his home for twenty years. 

His position here was excellently adapted to his intellectual wants, lie was 
a man of science by nature; and here he found a centre where the facts upon 
which he wished to experiment could be easily obtained and classified. His 
mind had for some time been attracted to his specialty : and the world became 
suddenly aware how far he had gone toward changing meteorology from a specu- 
lation, but little more respectable than alchemy, into a positive science, by his 



iv Memoir. 

invention of the Ni PHfiLOSCOPS, a verj simple and accurate instrument by which 

the expansion of air attributable to Latent calorie can be perfectly measured. At 

ihi> time he published Beveral pamphlets, reviewing and rejeoting the theories of 

rms and currents which prevailed; these attracted notioe because of their 

dear style and great power of analysis, and the savants of New England and 

Philadelphia began to look to Franklin [nstitute lor some theory which should 

the place of those which had been so remorselessly disposed of. By this 

time, also. Prof. Espy had formed his own theory, and brought it practically to 

the (est ot* many storms. Being convinced of its truth, lie announced it in a 

series of lectures in Philadelphia. These Lectures were soon called for in other 

centres of science ; and at length it became necessary for him to abandon Frank- 

i astitute, and devote himself to scientific pursuits alone. 

We have not space here for an analysis of the Professor's Theory of Storms, 
Which has now become the prevailing one. Its theme is quite simple : He sup- 
poses that when the air near the surface of the earth becomes more heated or 
more highly charged with aqueous vapor, which is only five-eighths of the specific 
gravity of atmospheric air, its equilibrium is unstable, and up-moving columns 
"i streams will be formed. As these columns rise, their upper parts will come 
under Less pressure, and the air will, therefore, expand ; as it expands it will 
grow colder, about one degree and a quarter for every hundred yards of its 
ascent, as he demonstrated by experiments in the Nepheloscope. The ascending 
columns will carry up with them the aqueous vapor which they contain, and, if 
they rise high enough, the cold produced by expansion from diminished pressure 
will condense some of this vapor into cloud ; for it is known that cloud is formed 
in the receiver of an air-pump when the air is suddenly withdrawn. The dis- 
tance to which the air will have to ascend before it will become cold enough to 
begin to form cloud, is a variable quantity, depending on the number of degrees 
which the dew-point is below the temperature of the air; and this height may 
be known at any time, by observing how many degrees a thin metallic tumbler 
of water must be cooled down below the temperature of the air before the vapor 
will condense on the outside. 

Professor Espy's account of the generation of winds at the time of a storm, 
was equally simple: the air rushes from all sides to the centre of the ascending 
columns, and in conjunction with this, the air is depressed around the columns, 
and brings down the motion which is known to be greater as air is above the 
earth's surface. His theories of the annulation of clouds, the interior passage 
for winds through the cone-centre of tornadoes, arc beautiful, and agree with 
tin- facts in the case. But we can not dwell upon them. No one interested in 
t!c subject will Ik; without his great work, The Philosophy of Storms, published 
by Little k Brown, Boston, during the year 1841. Before its publication in this 
form, the new theory had caused a sensation in the principal cities of England 
and Prance, and Professor Espy was invited to visit Europe, and compare his 
lltfl v. it.Ii those v. liicli had been reached by Redfield, Forbes, Pouillet, Fournet 
and others. 

He- accordingly visited Europe, and in September, L840, the British Associa- 
tion appointed a day to entertain the Professor's statement, which was made in 
the presence of Prof. Forties, Mr. Redfield, Sir John Hersehel, Sir David Brews- 
ter, and other eminent naturalists. The discussion which followed was one of 
the most interesting ever reported in the Journals of the Association. In the 
Academy of Sciences, at Paris, the interest was equally great, and a committee, 



Memoir. v 

consisting of Arago and Pouillet, was appointed to report upon Espy's observa- 
tions and theory. They were satisfied of the importance of the theory at once, 
and so reported. It was in the debate which look place in the Academy at this 
time, that Arago said, " France has its Cuvier, England its Newton, America its 
Espy." On his return from this satisfactory visit, Professor Espy was appointed 
corresponding member of the Smithsonian Institute. From that time until his 
death he resided in Washington, beloved and honored by all who knew him. 
His more recent discoveries will be given to the world, doubtless, by those who 
have charge of them ; one of them, relating to electricity, is quite interesting and 
important. We now turn to another side of his life, and one of paramount in- 
terest. 

Mr. Espy's parents were devout members of the Presbyterian Church, and as 
that Church had not in those days adopted the compliant system now in vogue, 
which aspires to carry the Westminster Confession on one shoulder, and the spirit 
and science of the age on the other, he received a quite strict and religious train- 
ing. The Bible was his daily study, and he learned the New Testament by 
rote. But we have seen that he was a realist at birth. One day, having read 
in the Testament the words " whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that ye 
shall receive,'' he went out into the garden alone, and, extending his hand up- 
ward, said, " God, give me a dollar!" His surprise and pain that the dollar 
did not drop into his hand from the clouds was great. Then Doubt quietly en- 
tered, took her seat, and henceforth every text must needs pass under her hand, 
and bear her questionings. Skeptic means, by etymology, ' one who considers 
a thing : ' consequently skeptics are rarely orthodox. Professor Espy, when he 
had passed through the waves of doubt, found himself on the strong shores where 
Faith marries Reason ; and their progeny of high thoughts and holy aspirations 
arose within him. His mind at first, and entirely by its own operations, arrived 
at a complete faith in the existence and benevolence of God : then adieu, 
parental Church, with thy doctrine of the angry God and the endless torments ! 
But he did not pause with the speculative Epicurists, who care to follow an idea 
only so far as it makes things easy, and lays the fear-phantoms : he went farther 
than to reject the idea that endless torment awaited any immortal child of God ; 
he developed the most perfect system of Optimism which has yet been announced. 
There is no evil :-. God is good ; God is over all : all is for the best. This 
was his theme, and he was wont with those who knew him to dwell on it with a 
convincing power and eloquence which easily arose to majesty. This storm- 
king, as he was called, had not gone forth to discover the pathways of the light- 
ning and survey the inviolable channels of wind and storm, and returned to be- 
lieve that the Chaos, driven from the external world forever, prevailed yet in the 
storms and winds of the inward and human world. He saw that the passions, 
the impulses, the motives, had their law, and that there was no chance-work but 
to empyrics, no Chaos but to the ignorant. These views gradually wrote them- 
selves through his experience and life, and have bequeathed us the following 
work. In it his distinction, beyond the production of a clear, simple and logical 
essay on a much confused subject, is, that he shows that so far from Necessity 
annihilating responsibility, as is alleged. Necessity alone makes responsibility 
possible. 

On the 17th day of January last, Professor Espy was stricken with paralysis : 
he was nearly seventy-four years of age, and it was scarcely expected by his friends, 
that even a constitution so vigorous as his, a constitution which had never been 



vi Memoir. 

. i bad habit of any kind, could vanquish t ho violent Too. When he 
pain, and could scarcely speak, ho a\;is heard to whisper, " 1 have tried to 
move that Limb, and can not." No paralytic stroke oould strike to the 
seat of thought and conviction 1 Never in Buoh a oondition have we known a 
mind to remain so aotive and so healthy in its tone to the last. As we looked 
upon the snowy looks oi' the pure old man, we fell how truly the ancient poet 
described such as u the white blossoms of eternal fruit." He died January 24th. 

The character of Processor Espy was as pure and elevated as any whioh it has 
been our happiness to moot. His word, with those who mel him, was truth itself; 
his innocence was like that of a child ; he lived and died without ever being wil- 
ling to suspect those whom others saw to be jealous of his position and inlluonee. 
\l\< benevolence was not only large and true, but it was equaled by his affection- 
: tenderness toward those Mho were appointed in the order of God to 
minister and be ministered to in the circle of his life. 

When the immortal old man was drawing near to his end, the writer of this 
memoir stood by him, amongst other friends, anxious for a last word. The old 
man could not speak a word, but presently moved his fingers as if he would 
write. Pencil and paper having been brought, he wrote some words in almost 
e scratches. It took us some hours to decipher them, but at last, letter 
added to letter, a sublime sentence shone with clear ray upon us; it ran : "I 
have found in human nature a principle superior to conscience. Conscience can 
be taught that it is right to burn heretics : Instinct can not be taught not to feel 
pain at the sight of suffering. " 

There it is, reader ! a voice from the mysterious boundary-line between the 
darkness of earth and the light of the superior world. We who received it, bear 
witness that by that principle a living and beautiful soul climbed to bloom and 
cluster in the light of God. 

The will which he left does so perfectly repeat the practical aim and spirit of 
his whole life, that we record its opening paragraphs here : 

" In the beginning of this, my last will and testament, I wish to express my 
most profound reverence for the Supreme E,uler of the Universe, and my un- 
wavering belief that everything which I have experienced during my whole life 
(as well the painful as the pleasant) has been so arranged by His infinite goodness 
and wisdom, as to result in good to me, by educating me to a highar state of 
knowledge, and to a more intense love of goodness, and so to prepare me for an 
eternity of* happiness after death. If it is better for me to exist happy after 
death, I shall so exist, as certainly as there is a God of infinite goodness, wisdom 
and power; and if it is better for me to suffer some pain hereafter for the sake 
of further improvement, I doubt not that an infinitely wise and good Father 
hac arranged that I shall so suffer. 

M Heavenly Father, with unwavering confidence in Thy love, I commit myself 
and the whole human family, Thy children, to Thy holy kceping. ,, 



MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY. 



Science has demonstrated that this earth was once fluid, from 
heat, to the surface ; it follows that man has not existed on this 
earth from eternity, and it is manifest that the first man had not a 
man for his father, nor the first woman a woman for her mother * 
and as there is no known cause now in existence to produce man, 
but that of ordinary generation, and it is plainly impossible for 
him to have originated from any fortuitous concourse of atoms, 
we are constrained to believe that the first man and first woman 
were contrived and brought into existence by a being of superior 
wisdom, power and goodness. And as this same reason applies to 
all the animals and vegetables on the face of the earth, we may 
safely infer that the power, wisdom and goodness of this being- 
are indefinitely great. This inference is greatly confirmed, when 
we discover innumerable contrivances, both in the moral and 
physical world, all tending to the well-being of man. 

Now all these contrivances imply a contriver, and unless this 
contriver was himself contrived, he must have been eternal. For 
it is certain, that the first cause or contriver always existed, for 
if there was ever a time when nothing existed, nothing could ever 
have been brought into existence — ex nihilo nihil Jit. This first 
self-existent and eternal cause or contriver is called God, whether 
the immediate contriver of the universe was the self-existent eter- 
nal first cause or not. But as nothing is gained by supposing 
that the contriver of the universe, and the former of man, was 
himself or itself contrived, it is unphilosophical to make the sup- 
position. 

When we examine the nature of man, we discover that he is so 
constituted or contrived, that the fundamental law of his nature is 
to be fond of pleasure and averse to pain. Indeed, as a sensitive 
being, it would seem he could not be formed otherwise. We find, 



8 Accountability and Punishment, 

also, that he is bo contrived as to be able to discover by degrees 
more and more the causes which produce pleasure, and the causes 
which produce pain. The sum of human happiness is much in- 
creased I'} the contrivance God has made, thai one of the princi- 
pal Bonrces of man's enjoyment is doing good to others, or en- 
deavoring to increase their happiness. We find, also, that doing 
evil to others, or even designing to do evil, is always attended 
with pain, and no doubt more suffering is felt by the evil-doer 
than by the one to whom the evil is done. 

God has so formed the human race, that one man's true interest 
or well-being never clashes with another's; or, in other words, 
one man is never under the necessity of diminishing the weft- 
being of another, to promote his own happiness. 

If man was so constituted that he could promote his own hap- 
piness by diminishing that of others, the very constitution of man 
would then be a species of bribery in God, offering happiness as a 
reward for doing evil to others. If God is perfectly wise and per- 
fectly good, he has not so constituted man. Indeed, if we allow 
that the great First Cause is without intelligence and incapable of 
design, and that man was formed by a fortuitous concourse of 
atoms, which is infinitely improbable, still by examining his con- 
stitution as it is we will be obliged to acknowledge that doing 
good to others is a source of pleasure, and doing evil to others is 
a source of pain. If man is never under the necessity of doing 
evil to others, or of diminishing their happiness to increase his 
own, a fortiori, God is never under the necessity of diminishing 
the happiness of one man for the good of another. 

Pain of every hind which does not result in the ultimate good 
or well-being of the individual suffering it, is an evil to him, and, 
of course, it can not promote the well-being of others ; and if in- 
flicted by others, it will diminish their happiness, probably, more 
than it does that of the individual on whom it is inflicted. All 
punishment, therefore, ought to be inflicted with the intention of 
benefiting the individual punished ; for if it results in diminishing 
the well-being of the individual punished, it certainly will dimin- 
ish the well-being of those who inflicted it — more especially if 
the punishment is inflicted without regard to the well-being of the 
sufferer. 

Punishment, therefore, to be just and useful (and it can not be 
just without being useful), should be prospective, and not retro- 



Accountability and Punishment. 9 

spective ; and it contains a false and dangerous doctrine to say a 
man ought to be punished for his transgressions! if this form of 
speech is understood literally. The truth is, he ought to be pun- 
ished only for the sake of reformation or discipline, — and this is 
the only mode in which God ever punishes, as will appear more 
fully hereafter. 

This doctrine, when once admitted, will remove all vengeance 
from the mind ; and every one will see, that to punish with the 
feelings of vengeance is to punish oneself. Thus the criminal code 
of all nations will be freed from its foulest blot, the open avowal 
and practice of the principle that it is just to punish for the good 
of the community — in some cases, at least — without any regard 
to the good of the criminal. This is the most pernicious doctrine 
that can possibly be inculcated and embraced ; for it teaches men 
to believe, from their infancy to manhood, that they may (at least, 
sometimes) benefit themselves by diminishing the well-being of 
others : and it never occurs to them that it is false ; for it is a doc- 
trine embraced by the State, and lies at the very foundation of 
their criminal code. 

The extreme perniciousness of this principle will clearly appear, 
when we perceive, as we may by a little consideration, that from 
this one error all our wicked conduct to others arises. Remove the 
belief that we can benefit ourselves by doing evil to others, and 
implant in its place the belief that we shall be the principal suf- 
ferers by such conduct, then all motive to do evil to others is at 
once cut off, and with the absence of motive the action will, of 
course, not be performed. If this doctrine is true, the evil done to 
a community by one legalized murder (the execution of a crimi- 
nal) is infinitely greater than the most atrocious murder ever com- 
mitted by an individual, because it teaches, in the most effectual 
manner, the principle from which all murders and other crimes 
arise ; and, besides, the moral feeling of the community, by the 
practice of capital punishments, is rendered callous, to a degree 
beyond calculation. 

Men are so constructed by the Creator that they perform every 
day thousands of good actions, without considering for a moment 
whether happiness or misery will be the result ; but they seldom, 
if ever, commit a crime without calculating the consequences : 
Their moral arithmetic, however, deriving its rules of calculation 



H 1 Accountability and Punishment. 

m the criminal code of nations. Is false, and (hoy determine to 
do evil to their fellow-creature from the expectation of increasing 
their own well-being. In this expectation they must fail, as cer- 
tainly as a just God stands at the head oi' the universe; for it 
would be in the highest degree wicked to bribe his creatures with 
happiness as a reward or consequence of doing evil one to another. 
AlS it is manifestly not good for an individual to be punished for 
any crime, when it is impossible for that punishment to work 
reformation or benefit to the individual in any other way, so it is 
manifestly unjust to inflict such punishment, and it would be in- 
finitely unjust to continue such punishment to all eternity. 

( - i 1 being perfectly wise and perfectly good, he must, from his 
very nature, intend to do some good in everything which he does ; 
whenever he punishes any of his creatures, therefore, or, which is 
the same thing, causes pain to be the necessary consequence of 
crime, he must intend to do that creature good by the pain, more 
especially as this is the only way to improve the individual, and 
thus also to benefit others. 

A- God certainly does punish — that is, cause pain to be the 
inevitable consequence of certain actions, which we therefore call 
evil actions — we are sure he will succeed in doing the good which 
he intends by that punishment ; for he is all -wise to lay his plan, 
and all-powerful to execute it. Now the only good conceivable 
to result from punishment is the reformation of the individual, or 
the happiness of others ; and as these are inseparable, the refor- 
mation of the individual must be effected. Nor is it difficult to 
conceive how this is done. God has made man fond of happi- 
ness, and averse to misery ; it is a law of his nature which never 
varies. He can not change it, either by volition or crime ; he 
can not will to hate happiness and love misery any more than he 
can suspend gravitation by a word of command. 

God has made man also with an intellect capable of finding out 
by experience more and more of those things which produce mis- 
er}-, and also more and more of those things which produce hap- 
piness. Now the wiser he becomes, the wiser will be his volitions ; 
that, is, the more and more of those things which produce happi- 
ness \\<: will choose, and the more and more of those things which 
produce misery he will avoid; and when he becomes perfectly 
wise, if that time shall ever come, he will then by no possibility 



Accountability and Punishment. 11 

choose to do any wicked action, because a perfectly wise being 
can not choose to make a foolish volition. Nor does this impossi- 
bility of choosing to make foolish or wicked volitions in the 
slightest degree impair his free agency ; for, on such a supposition, 
God is not a perfect free agent, as, from the very perfection of his 
nature, he can not choose to make a foolish or wicked volition, or 
perform any wicked action. It has been thought by some that 
free agency, or moral accountability, implies at least the possibility 
of choosing to do either good or evil ; but this can not be, for, on 
this plan, God would not be a free agent ; and man, too, would 
be less and less a free agent the wiser he became, and when he 
became perfectly wise, he would cease to be a free agent altogether. 
It is maintained also by some, that it would be unjust in God 
to cause pain to follow as a consequence of any action, if that 
action -could not have been avoided. So far from this being cor- 
rect, it will" appear by a little reflection that it is entirely con- 
sistent with the highest benevolence to cause pain to follow the 
commission of crimes, or the formation of wicked volitions, as 
this is the only means of enabling the agent to make good voli- 
tions in future. It may perhaps be objected that God could not 
have intended to produce the greatest possible amount of happi- 
ness when he created man, or he would have created him so per- 
fect in knowledge that he never could choose to do any act from 
which pain would result. It may be answered that God is only 
beginning to create man when he is born ; and that it is impos- 
sible, so far as we know, to create him faster in knowledge than 
he is actually being created, whilst he remains in this world. And, 
besides, we may safely infer, that if it would be better for man to 
have been created in any other way, God, from his infinite per- 
fections, would have chosen that way. 

-^The justice of punishment does not depend on the fact that it 
was possible for the individual punished to have avoided the crime 
committed, but rather on the fact that the being who is punished 
is created with powers and capacities which may be operated on 
by the punishment itself, so as to render it possible and even cer- 
tain, that, with the new motives introduced by the punishment, or 
by the pain following the commission of the crime, as an effect, 
he will be finally taught to avoid the crime in future. Unless the 
individual punished is so created, all punishment would be useless 
to him, and, of course, useless to others. If retrospective punish- 



LS Aecountatril ity and PiuiisJnnvut. 

mem could cause a crime which lias been committed not to be, 
then it might be useful : bul this is impossible and absurd. Nor 
surdity of punishing retrospectively lessened by suppos- 
ing that the individual punished could have avoided doing the 
criminal act ; for, even on that supposition, the act once done can 
not he prevented, nor in any wav altered by the punishment. 

(hi some of the points here discussed the human mind seems to 
he differently constituted, and to take different views, after the 
most careful and patient examination. Some think that though 
©od knew from all eternity all the actions which I perform in my 
whole lite, yet 1 might have avoided many of them, if not all, and 
might perform an entirely different set ; otherwise it would he unjust 
in God to cause pain or punishment to he the result of any of 
tlu'in. Others acknowledge that foreknowledge implies inevit- 
ability : hut as foreknowledge is not the cause of the inevitability, 
they think God may be just in punishing for crimes or vices, pro- 
vided he only foresaw these vices, but did not decree them. Now 
my mind is so constituted that it appears to me that if our actions 
were foreknown to God from all eternity, they must have been 
decreed by him. For foreknowledge implies the certainty that the 
event foreknown will come to pass. Now this certainty, or, which 
i- the -ai ue thing, this inevitability of the event, must have been 
caused by something in God, or something out of God. If it 
was something in God, it must have been his decree or determina- 
tion, either to cause the events to come to pass, or to bring into 
existence a set of causes which would certainly bring into cx- 
istence the events foreknown; for, if there was no certainty that 
the events would take place, then they could not be foreknown. 
Now, if God decreed to bring these effects into existence, or to 
bring a set of causes into existence which he knew would certainly 
produce the effects, then may he be said to have decreed the effects. 
On tli'- other hand, if God did not decree to bring the effects fore- 
n into existence himself by his direct agency, nor to create 
any set "J- train of causes which would certainly produce the effects 
foreknown, then something out of God was the cause of the cer- 
tainty, on which God's foreknowledge was founded, or which 
God'.- foreknowledge implies. Now, whatever this something is, 
it must he superior to God in power, for it is supposed to have 
I a most important train of events in the moral world to be 
certain, and that, too, independent of any agency in God. Nay, 



Accountability and Punishment. 13 

more : not only will they come into existence without the agency 
of God, hut he has no power to binder them ; for that can not he 
prevented from coming to pass which any being knows will cer- 
tainly come to* pass. To believe, then, that God foresaw the 
future actions of men, and at the same time to deny that he was 
himself the cause of that certainty or inevitability that the events 
foreknown would take place, on which the foreknowledge was 
founded, leads to atheism, or at least to a belief that God is a very 
weak and imperfect heing ; for, inasmuch as it is assumed that 
the certainty or inevitahility was not caused hy him, and as it is 
clear that, when an inevitahility is once in existence, the thing in- 
evitable can not he prevented from coming to pass, the Deity is left 
powerless in regard to the events taking place or not taking place. 
If it is said that the inevitability arose from something out of 
God, hut that the subsequent agency of God had to be employed 
to bring the -very beings into existence whose acts were inevit- 
able, and thus he was not powerless in relation to these acts, 
still, even on this scheme, there would be a power above God, 
which is atheism. Or, if this power, which causes things to be 
inevitable, does this with intelligence and goodness, then this 
power is God, and the being who creates man is an inferior agent, 
which the superior uses to execute his plans, and bring into exist- 
ence those things which he had rendered inevitable, or, which is 
the same thing, which he had decreed. 

Another will object to all these views, and say the only plan to 
render man a free agent is to suppose that there is no certainty or 
inevitability, which amounts to the same thing, as it relates to its 
influence on the character of actions, and consequently there can 
not be a foreknowledge of the actions of a free agent. This view 
is founded, as w r as said before, on the assumption that free agency, 
or moral accountability, implies the possibility of choosing to do 
either right or wrong, in every case, where a choice is made ; or, 
as it is vaguely expressed, the agent is free to choose the right or 
the wrong. If those who take this view of the subject will insti- 
tute a careful examination of what can be meant here by the word 
"free," they will, I think, find reason to change their views. If 
they suppose that the volitions are free from the intelligence and 
passions of the agent, and also free from the desire of happiness 
or aversion to misery, which is the universal law of all beings 
endowed with feeling, then is there no such thing as that kind of 



11 .1 uid Punishment. 

i h they contend, If they come to the conclu-' 
rion, as 1 think they must bj Buch an examination, thai our 
volitions are not entirely Free from the influence of our state ol 
as to intelligence, and our clearness of view as to the char- 
ject, to produce happiness or misery, at the time of 
willing or choosing, then I desire them to push the inquiry still 
further, and inquire how much influence the intelligence and state 
of mind may exercise on the volitions or choices which the agent 
makes, without destroying his freedom or moral accountability. 
In pursuing this inquiry to its utmost extent, my mind leans 
Jv to the conviction that all the time man is increasing in 
m and goodness, the possibility of his making foolish and 
:ed volitions is constantly diminishing, and his power to 
make wise and good volitions is increasing in the same proportion, 
and thus all that kind of agency or power of acting which is of 
any value is retained and augmented. And whether any one may 
choose i" call this power of making volitions under the influence 
of wisdom and goodness free agency or not, is a matter of little 
[uence, provided the fact itself is clearly perceived. 
It we push our inquiry still further, we will perceive that our 
volitions, like all things which begin to exist, are produced by 
equate to produce them, each particular volition depend- 
i its own particular set of causes, adequate to produce that 
very volition and no other at the time. The particulars going to 
up the cause are numerous, and if any one of the particu- 
bould he removed, the particular volition made at that time 
would he different. For example, suppose we make a volition 
which [a the result of much deliberation. It is manifest that there 
are three particulars coexisting as causes of this volition, and 
that if any one of them had been wanting at the time, the volition 
could not have been made. These three are the being who chooses 
or will-, the object of the choice, and the intelligence with which 
eliberation is made. Other particulars, doubtless, enter into 
omplex compound going to makeup the cause of the voli- 
tion, they may he, they are adequate to produce the 
:ular volition, and no other. Now, if is manifest that the 
particular volition of which we are speaking is inevitably pro- 
cause at the moment it comes into exist- 
l; therefore, if i'v<t agency depends upon the possibility 
of making a different volition cvf'vy time we make a volition, then 



Accountability and Punishment. 15 

free agency in that sense does not, and can not exist. Nor is it 
desirable that such a free agency should exist, for a being BO con- 
stituted that his intelligence should not influence hie volitions, 
wonld he a monstrosity of which we could form no conception — 
certainly he would not be a moral agent. Such a being could 
never be taught, and even if he could become intelligent, his intel- 
ligence would be of no use, for his volitions not being influenced 
by his understanding, he would be as likely to make foolish or 
ignorant volitions after he became intelligent as before. But the 
proposition is so absurd in itself that it seems impossible to attempt 
to reason from it without uttering absurdities. It is almost as if 
we were to suppose our uncle to be our aunt, and then to endeavor 
to find out what would be the consequences of such a supposition. 

There is another consequence flowing from the supposition that 
there is not a necessary and indissoluble connection between the 
volitions and the causes of those volitions, which the advocates 
of this view of the subject little suspect. It is, that man on this 
principle would not be an accountable being ; or, in other w r ords, 
it would be utterly useless to punish him after he had committed 
any crime, with the expectation that the punishment would be of 
any use. It is true, punishment would produce new views, if it 
was so arranged that he would perceive it to follow as a conse- 
quence of the transgression : but what good would that do ? His 
future volitions, according to the supposition, could not be affected 
by these new views. Thus it appears that the very principle 
which those who advocate this view of the subject bring forward 
as the very essence of moral accountability, would render account- 
ability absurd if it was true. Indeed, the only scheme on which 
moral accountability can be founded is that of the necessary con- 
nection between cause and effect ; or the doctrine that the volitions 
are dependent on causes, and that among these causes is the state 
of intelligence and a knowledge of the consequences which will 
flow from the volitions themselves. 

On this supposition, if a man should violate the law of God — 
that is, the law of his own nature — it would be useful, just and 
benevolent in the Deity to cause pain to be the immediate result, 
so that this new knowledge might become a new cause o( produc- 
ing a volition corresponding to the law of God on the next occa- 
sion. This, in fact, is the only mode which could be adopted t<» 
educate him out of a state of ignorance into a state of knowledge ; 



16 Accountability anil Punishment. 

rapidly he committed transgressions, and the mow 
ie consequent pain came upon him, the Easter i( would 

he would rise into knowledge and happiness. Od the oon- 

i had made man bo thai no pain would follow the 

his laws, l'ui pleasure, then would man never 

(earn to avoid transgression. And the consequences of such an 

arrangement are as impossible to Foresee as it would be to foresee 

the consequences which would follow if our ancle were cur aunt. 

< hi this subject, to know what is, is the only science. Is it a fact 

that pain is a consequence of the transgression of God's laws? 

[s it a fact that this pain has a tendency to educate us into a 

knowledge of those laws ? Is it not better that we should be edu- 

eated on this subject, than remain ignorant? Gould we be so 

educated if pain did not follow transgression as an effect follows 

? Many would he willing to admit that, provided men 

do transgress, it i- better pain should follow, for the reason as- 

I above : hut they can not admit that it is better to transgress 
— and this is the rhicf reason why they are unwilling to believe 
that God decreed the transgression. It, indeed, it proved that 

is a malevolent being, provided he has decreed transgressions 
of his law, as well as the pain which follows these transgressions, 
then no argument, however strong, would he sufficient to satisfy 
the mind of the certainty of such decrees. It would remain for- 
ever perplexed between the force of the argument, and the absurd- 
ity of the conclusion. It is not probable, a 'priori, that God has 
created the human mind so as to remain in a state of perplexity 
forever on so important a point. The search for truth is indeed 
me- of the highest enjoyments of the human mind ; and I can well 
appreciate the saying of one who delighted in the study of God's 
works, when he declared, " If God should hold out Truth to him 
in on" hand, and 1 he search for Truth in the other, and allow him 

ike his choice, he would say, Give me the search for 

Tr"tJ<" Much of oil)- pleasure, however, in the search for truth, 

from the continual discoveries of truth itself, and from the 

of making more. But if we should despair of ever arriving 
at the truth on a particular subject, OUr pleasure; in the search 
would cease, and with the termination of the pleasure the eeart?h 
i 

Bow much of out happiness in a future state; of existence will 
depend '»n the search for truth, we have no means of knowing. 



Accountability and Punishment. 17 

[Vrhaps we may there be able to investigate the causes of thin 
a n<l discover the connection which exists between cause and effe< 
here we can only generalize facts themselves, and trace them ap to 
genera] principles, without being able in any case to investigate 
the origin of those principles, or even discover how it is possible 
that anything should begin to be. Perhaps we shall be able to 
with the clearness of certainty what we now can only render prob- 
able by a laborious train of reasoning, thai everything which is 
possible is, and everything which is not is impossible at the pi 
ent time. 

One argument which renders this proposition probable is found- 
ed on the perfections of God. If we assume that, because God is 
omnipotent, He could have caused something to exist now which 
does not exist, it may be predicated of that tiling that it is better it 
should exist than not exist, or worse that it should exist than not 
exist, or that its existence would be neither good nor evil. Now, 
the infinite goodness of God implies not only that all which He 
does is best, but that He w T ill not omit to do anything which it 
would be better to do : and to say that God can not do anything 
contrary to his own infinite goodness, or contrary to his own 
will — which, from his nature and perfections, must be infinitely 
good — surely does not limit his omnipotence. It follows that 
if it is better that the thing should be than not to be, God, from 
his very perfections, must have willed to bring it into existence, 
or to lay a train of causes which would bring it into existence, at 
the very time when it would be best for it to exist. And as God 
is the author of all things which exist, either directly or indi- 
rectly, and as nothing can exist contrary to his will, it follows 
that it is in conformity with the will of God that whatever is now, 
should be now, and nothing else. Therefore, unless there is some 
flaw in this reasoning which I can not detect, it is true, at each 
moment of time, to say, Everything which is possible is ; or, 
which is the same thing, Nothing is possible which is not. Nor 
is the truth of this proposition at all incompatible with the omni- 
potence of God ; for the reason why nothing can be now but what 
is now exists in the perfections of God, and not in any hindering 
power out of God. 

Thus it appears that all the transgressions of the law of God 
which take place are not only inevitable, but that thev are inevit- 
2 



l v .! coiaitahilitij and Punishment. 

able • is ;iu-\ are the best and onlj occurrences which could 
take pirn 

I tion which almost all would make to this conclusion 

IB anticipated : Why praise men for some acts, and blame them for 
others, if they are both the verj best possible? I answer that, as 
praise and blame rise spontaneously in every human mind, if these 
- are inconsistent with the above reasonings, the presump- 
inst the reasoning would be very strong, if not conclusive. 
But there is, indeed, do inconsistency ; for the same reasoning 
which proves whatever is is best at the present, proves that a 
change is best for the future, — and praise and blame are introduced 
to operate on t*>e volitions of men, or as causes to produce new 
volitions and new actions. It does not follow that, because all 
the transgressions of the laws o\' Q-od which occur are useful, 

therefore others which do not occur would be useful. On the con- 
trary, the same reasoning which proves the former to he useful, 
eg that the latter would be injurious. God, therefore, has im- 
planted in the human mind the sentiments of approbation and dis- 
caused praise to be agreeable to us, and approbation, and has 
blame disagreeable, that these emotions may he links in the great 
chain of cause and effect — to he the means of bringing into exist- 
ing such volitions as he foresees will he the best. 
It" it is replied that when men praise for good actions it is 
under the impression that the person praised could have done had 
actions instead of good ; and when they blame, it is under the im- 
rion that tie* person blamed could have avoided the action 
blamed : and that men themselves feel self-condemned for certain 
actions under the impression that they might have avoided them, — 
swer, that these impressions do not prove the fact. If you 
line men on this point, you will find that they have no d is- 
land notions on the subject : most of them will say that they are 
to do as they please, and this is the whole amount of their 
ledge on the subject. Now, this is undoubtedly true. They 
> do as they please. If you ask them if they are i'vae to 
they do not please, or if they are frfee to please contrary to 
the way they please, you will find that they have never thought 
on the subject ; so that the real question, whether anything which 
a man does through bis whok life could be avoided or not, has 
ne\er entered their mind. How, then, can their impressions — 
Or, a- they sometimes call it, consciousness — decide the question ? 



Accountability and Punishment. 1 9 

If they examine the subject, s<> as to form any distinci notion of 
it, they will acknowledge thai the action follows inevitably from 

the will or choice or volition; and thai after a man pleases or 
wills to do a thing, the thing will be done, of course. 11' we will 
to move our arm, the arm mows : tho-c is a necessary connection 

between the volition and the motion of the ami. T<> say thai fl 
man may move his arm or not, just as he pleases, is not deciding 
the question whether, if he does move his arm, lie might have 
avoided that action. It is indeed plain that, after he willed to 
move it, it was no longer possible to avoid it. 

It may be objected that, if men were taught to believe this doc- 
trine, they would never blame themselves or others, because the 
sentiment of blame or sorrow for transgression could not spring 
up under the full belief that the transgression was unavoidable. I 
answer, that we never can become indifferent to pain under any 
system of instruction, or under any belief, as to the inevitability 
of actions. Pain will always be disagreeable to us, and the actions 
known to be productive of pain — as the transgression of the laws 
of God must be — will always be disapproved, unless we see clearly 
that they are intended for good. 

It is true, that all which is bitter and resentful in blame will 
cease, but all which is instructive and amendatory will remain. 
When the one who is blamed perceives that there is nothing but 
kindness and instruction in the blame — no resentment nor ven- 
geance, no relation to the past, but merely a desire to operate on 
the future — it will be more efficient in producing reformation than 
it has heretofore been ; and, besides, the pain of resentful feelings, 
which has heretofore been very great, will be altogether avoided 
in the one who blames. The sum of human happiness will be 
vastly increased when men shall be educated up to a state of intel- 
ligence and virtue, in which they will clearly perceive that resent- 
ments are implanted in the human mind only to operate in the 
lowest states of ignorance, and that God uses them only as a 
scaffold to build up the temple of knowledge and virtue in the 
human mind — or rather to lay the foundation of this temple — and 
when this is done, the scaffold ought to be removed as cumbrous 
and unsightly. Some have thought that, because God has im- 
planted resentment in the human mind, it was intended that this 
feeling should never become extinct — or, in other words, that 
what God creates He intends to be eternal ; but we have no proof 



I cotuitabiliti/ uthl Punishment. 

of tli it es of animals have become extinct, and creal ion 

-. change. Man is born entirely ignorant, and bis 

one degree of knowledge and virtue to another is 

truly a new creation. Man is evidently not made perfect al once; 

evidently made to rise, and not to fall — to ad- 

rards perfection, and never to retrograde; and this great 

.v lie will fulfil. The motive of Tear is useful in the lowest 

s of human intelligence and virtue; but as soon as higher 

motives ran be implanted, fear ceases to operate, and the higher 

motives become much more efficient. 

n duty itself, which is thought by some to be the highest 
. <■ which can actuate the human mind, will become obsolete 
in the highest states of intelligence and virtue; for it is the nature 
of all the higher motives to render useless and inoperative those of 
inferior quality. Now, the highest of all possible motives to be 
is ill-' love of goodness itself. Take the exercise of any of 
8, or example, and the truth of the assertion will be 
manifest. What is the highest motive to tell the truth, at all 
times, but the love of truth itself, and the pleasure .we experience 
in telling the truth ? When the love of truth is once firmly estab- 
I in our minds, we never avoid lying from the fear of detec- 
bell the truth from a sense of duty any more than 
: a ripe peach from a sense of duty, and not from the pleas- 
ure of the taste. 

The man who loves honesty docs not avoid sheep-stealing from 

lection ; be lias no taste for the tiling, and if he was 

Bure he would never be detected, he would have no desire to do the 

-the certainty of concealment would be no temptation; and 

it' the idea of stealing never enters into his head in such a way as 

luce him to deliberate a moment whether he will steal or not, 

it is manifest thai he does not abstain from stealing through a 

of duty. Even those who maintain that duty is the highest 

e would greatly prefer to have an affectionate wife rather than 

a dutiful one. [ndeed, the moment 1 hear a woman praise herself 

for being a dutiful wife, I am sure she has not much domestic 

pinesfl in the conjugal state. 

L ig a much higher and better motive, for two reasons : It is 

alwaj post, ready to do its work — it never slumbers; but 

duty is not always present to the mind — it has to he called up 

he mind, and sometimes will not come when called ; thus it is 



Accountability and Punishment. *1\ 

not so efficient as love. In the second place, duly does not afford 
so much happines* as love, even when it prompts us to perform 
the same actions; and thai motive is undoubtedly the besi which 
produces the highest enjoyment — especially if it is, at the same 
thus, most efficacious in producing good volitions and virtuous 
actions. Indeed, tin 4 abstaining from vicious actions through the 

fear of punishment hardly deserves the n.unc of virtue J and ab- 
staining from any vice through a sense of duty has a less deg 
of virtue in it, than abstaining from the ame vice through a 

hatred of the vice and a love of the opposite virtue. 

It is an interesting thing to examine how many different mo- 
tives may actuate the mind in the same line of conduct. For ex- 
ample, the study of science or literature : A youth may engage in 
this study from a desire to please his parents, and from this mo- 
tive alone. Presently he may feel the spirit of emulation or a 
desire of fame springing up in his bosom ; if this feeling becomes 
very strong, it will supplant the other entirely, and the first mo- 
tives will be forgotten. Presently ambition may supplant emu- 
lation in the same way, and this being a stronger motive than 
either of the others when it takes deep root, it will stimulate the 
man to great exertions in the acquisition of knowledge. 

But if the highest of all motives should spring up in the mind — 
the love of knowledge, and an unspeakable enjoyment in the dis- 
covery of truth — then all inferior motives, even ambition itself, 
will be forgotten as if they had never been ; as there is no longer 
any use for them they may well cease to exist. They are, in fact, 
like resentment and anger, the mere scaffolding which God uses to 
build up the mind to a lofty state of excellence, and when this is 
accomplished the scaffolding is thrown down. I can conceive of 
no higher motive than the love of truth and the love of goodness. 
It is probable, therefore, that when this motive once takes root 
it will flourish to all eternity as the prevailing motive in all our 
conduct. And as our happiness will consist in the search and dis- 
covery of truth and in the practice of goodness, it will he impos- 
sible for the motive ever to change. 

It may perhaps be objected by some, that, if anger and resent- 
ment should cease to spring up in our minds when we are injured 
and insulted, great evil would result, for no other motive would 
stimulate us to inflict that chastisement on the offender which his 
conduct deserves. Thus, he would never be cured o\' his evil, and 



29 oiDitabUiti/ and Punishment. 

subject bo the continual repetition of the insult or 
injury, [f this is really a true statement of the case, and if the 
here anticipated would reallj t low from the annihilation of 
sentment, the objection is unanswerable, and would 
God never intends these feelings to become extinct, i 
But are we sure that kindness and gentleness on our part to- 
- the insolent would be less efficient in curing them of their 
nt feelings towards us, and their disposition to do us injury, 
than conduct dictated by anger or resentment? So far from this 
being the rase, it is as true in the moral world as in the material, 
that "action and reaction are equal and in opposite directions." 
Treat a man with harshness, and harshness will be returned — treat 
him with kindness, and kindness will be returned ; at least, this 
is the case in the lower stages of his existence. As soon as a man 
isi - high enough to perceive this law, why not take advantage of 
it? Why not treat the insolent with kindness, and thus " over- 
7 with yood? " Until a man is far advanced in knowledge 
and virtue he will not be able to act on this principle ; bntas soon 
a- he can he will perceive it will be better both for him and the 
ler, because he himself will avoid the great pain of anger, 
and the offender will be more effectually cured. By the law of re- 
taliation the offender might be restrained from insolent conduct in 
future, but by the law of kindness the very disposition or desire 
insolent would forever cease to exist. If even a few men 
should not only act kindly, hut feel kindly, towards those who mal- 
them and revile them, the beneficent effects of such conduct 
would be so apparent and so great that many would hasten to 
imitate so sublime an example, and an unspeakable amount of 
j nod would speedily be the result. 

.tremely hard, however, in the present state of society, 

to rise so high in their moral advancement as to act and 

bus, especially as they are educated during all the early part 

of their lives, when they are incapable of thinking for themselves, 

lieve in the law of retaliation, and when they see every one act 

on that principle and no one ever calls it in question. If children 

jiit from their earliest infency, both by precept and by 

nple of their parents and all around them, that they must 

,rn evil for evil, but to bless them who curse them, who 

bell the mighty influence this system would have on the peace 

and happiness of the world in one generation? 



Accountability and Punishment. 23 

But even in the present low state of moral advancement — low- 
in comparison of what it will be in future times — the man who 
shall exhibit the sublime mora] spectacle of kindness of feeling 

and gentleness of deport ment towards one who treats him with 
insult and contumely, will produce a much more lasting and ben- 
eficial impression on all who witness the scene, than another who 
returns evil for evil. 

The same mode of reasoning will apply, with peculiar pro- 
priety, to the conduct of a State towards a criminal. What 
would be more highly calculated to soften the heart of a criminal 
than to be treated with gentleness and kindness ? If the State 
would never do anything to a criminal but what the most affec- 
tionate parent would wash to be done to his own child under sim- 
ilar circumstances, for the good of that child — provided that the 
parent's wishes were guided by sound reason, — an untold amount 
of evil in the prosecution of criminals would disappear from the 
earth. The time, I hope, is not far distant wdien every civilized 
nation will say in her criminal code to each of her offending 
children : 

My dear child, I am extremely sorry for my past conduct 
in regard to you, my child ; I ought to have provided the means 
of giving you a better education ; your understanding ought to 
have been cultivated by the study of the arts and sciences, and 
your tastes so improved that you never would have thought of 
doing anything mean, low and base. I most humbly beg your 
pardon for having thus neglected you, more particularly as you 
might have enjoyed a great deal more happiness in the same time 
than you have done, and also been a much more useful man. 
Now, as the strongest proof I can give you of my sincere peni- 
tence for this my neglect, by which you have suffered a severe loss, 
I shall henceforth make every atonement in my power. In the 
first place, as you have, through my shameful negligence, advanced 
so far in life without being properly taught that you are now un- 
willing to learn, and would not even go to school if left entirely 
at your own disposal — and as your conduct proves beyond doubt 
that you can not be trusted to govern yourself until you are fur- 
ther taught, — I Avill enclose you in this my house of instruction. 
where you will be furnished with the best masters to instruct yon 
in the arts and sciences ; you shall take your choice, and if you 
are too old to^acquire any taste for intellectual pursuits and enjoy- 



ii Aocovntability and Punishment. 

ments, 1 shall be the more sorrj for my negligence in doI com 
your Intellectual and moral education earlier. Notwith- 
ing, I will furnish you the means of learnings useful trade 
ur own choice, thai vmi may be able to discover how much 
happy \ "on will be in future by making your living by your 
«>wn industry than by the unjust moans which, from mistaken 
a heretofore employed. Foil shall be treated with the 
st kindness while you stay under my (•oof, and whenever you 
are well taught you shall be at liberty to depart. Bo Tar from 
treating you with harshness and unkindness, my whole conidiMSt to 
you shall prove thai 1 blame myself and not you. I believe that, 
it' a child is brought up in the way he should go, when he is old he 
will not depart from it. You w4re not so brought up ; it is my 
fault, and why should 1 be angry at you? You were horn in my 
family, without your knowledge or consent, and indeed without 
your agency in any way. Some of my children among whom you 
born were rich and some poor, and many of them became so 
without any merit or demerit of their own. It was my duty, 
ever, to see that none should starve either for want of bread 
or the want of knowledge, unless it was decidedly their own fault. 
Now, your want of instruction in childhood, when you did not 
know how to instruct yourself, is clearly my fault, and it ill be- 
comes me to upbraid you for conduct which I, not you, could have 
anticipated from the neglect of your education at a time when you 
did not know how to educate yourself. I knew that ignorance 
would lead into error, and that error would terminate in crime : 
you knew nothing of this. I knew that, if you were brought up 
with a he] id' that you could benefit yourself by injuring another, 
this belief would lead to crime, yet I took no pains to teach you 
alsity of this principle; nay, I permitted you to infer that I 
believed the principle to be true from my own conduct, for I fre- 
quently punished some of my own children with the avowed pui- 
-.} doing good to the rest, without the least regard to the good 
of those punished. For all this conduct I am utterly ashamed, and 
J promise in future never to do the like again. I begin with you ; 
all I do to you, you shall feel, and others shall perceive^ is done 
with the sole intention of making you a wiser and better man; 
and if i succeed in doing more good to others by this line of eon- 
duet than by the former — and if I also succeed in educating you 
Up to 80 high a State of intelligence and virtue that you will no 



Accountability and Punishment. 26 

longer haw any desire to do anything base, — all my children will 

have occasion to rejoice at my new mode of discipline when one 
of them goes astray. I have foolishly acted, heretofore, as if the 
true interests of my children were not in harmony with each ath 
and when oik 1 of them acted on the same principle, and endeavored 
to benefit himself by violating the lights of another, I caught him 
and punished him without any regard to his happiness or well- 
being, with the avowed purpose of benefiting the others. This 
system I shall henceforth abandon, not merely from its injustice 
and incompetence to produce the desired effect. Imt because it is 
calculated to perpetuate the belief that we may sometimes benefit 
ourselves by doing evil to others — an error from which almost all 
crimes originate. Go, my son, into my house of correction, and 
be assured that you are deprived of your liberty only from neces- 
sity — a necessity which lias arisen from my neglect to attend to 
your education in early life, and from the false doctrine which 1 
myself contributed to inculcate into your youthful mind. Your 
transgression has arisen not so much from a desire to do evil to 
your brothers as from a desire to do good to yourself; as soon as 
you learn that your good can not be effected in this way, you may 
then be entrusted again with your liberty : consequently, it shall 
then most cheerfully be restored to 3^011. In the meantime you shall 
be visited by the kindest and most benevolent of your brothers 
and sisters, who will sympathize with you, and be ready to take 
you by the hand and assist you, when you leave this my house of 
correction and education of those who err in their search for hap- 
piness — of those who miss the mark. During your hours of relax- 
ation from study you may, if you choose, employ yourself in some 
useful and lucrative occupation ; the proceeds, over and above the 
expenses of your education, shall be yours, and entirely at your own 
disposal when you shall be restored to liberty. If you should un- 
fortunately refuse to accept of intellectual culture, though you have 
the choice of all departments of science and literature, with the 
best masters in each, then the only thing remaining is for you to 
learn some trade by which you may be able to support yourself. 
and become a useful member of society ; and should you be so per- 
verse and insensible to the claims of justice that you refuse even 
to do this, then you will be made to feel want, until you become 
willing to support yourself by the labor of your own hands. This 
necessity will be imposed upon you solely with a view to your 



26 wmntobitity and Punishment, 

I : for no one can be happy without being useful, [die- 
ts the bane of happiness, and industrious habits can only be 
acquired 1>\ the practice of some useful occupation. Practice, my 
and you will boob discover thai a source of happiness never 
perceived before is within your reach, which, when mice obtained, 
you will never abandon. 1 leave yon now to your own choice. 

\ gaod } and you will be happy. 

This is the language every State ought to address to her erring 
children, she is their mother, and she ought to feel towards (hem 
cindest compassion when they deviate from the path of recti- 
tude, because it is then they suffer the most pain. When a child 
has the colic, the fever and ague, or any corporeal disease, the 
mother watches over it with the most tender care, and all the med- 
- which she administers are intended to hasten its cure; none 
of them are expected to operate on what is past, hut are intended 
entirely for the future. The medicines are not given for the good 
of the healthy children, but entirely for the good of the sick. Why 
should it not be so in moral diseases ? 

It is a curious circumstance, and one which I can not account 
for, that men in all ages, down to the nineteenth century, have 
in regard to punishments, and with regard to punishments 
alone, as if they could change the past. They seem to think 
that BO Hindi guilt deserves so much punishment, entirely inde- 
pendent of its tendency to produce reformation, or any beneficial 
• on til*- sufferer. 
When a man builds a house, it is not to live in during the 
eding year, but the succeeding; and when he gives instruc- 
tion to his child, it is not to make him wiser in time past, but in 
time to come. Now, if all punishment is only a kind of instruc- 
tion, and is always unjust unless so intended, why should the idea 
brospective punishment ever enter our minds, any more than 
jpective instruction. Jt is true, instruction may be better 
adapted to the state of the mind by knowing the preceding igno- 
. and so may punishment by knowing the preceding crime. 
Medicine may be better adapted to the state of the patient by 
ing the exact nature of the disease; ; but in all cases the intel- 
nt In all his actions will aim to produce some effects 
I'ltuy':. and never to change the past. God himself acts on this 
plan. In the series of events which take place in his universe, 
they ><-<\ that the preceding one may produce the sue- 



Accountability and Punishment. 27 

ceeding one, but never the reverse. Oh, vain man, how long will 
it he before thou learnest to act in conformity to the eternal and 
immutable order established in the universe of God ! 
Perhaps it may be urged, that though the rule is general that 

men's interests never clash, yet when a man has once committed 
a crime he has forfeited all right to be treated by his fellows 
according to the general rule; especially as he voluntarily com- 
mitted the crime, knowing that if men caught him in the commis- 
sion of it they would punish him, not with any regard to his 
good, but merely to set an example to others of what they would 
have to expect provided they did the same. And as a confirma- 
tion of this view it is urged, that the criminal himself acknowl- 
edges the justice of the punishment inflicted upon him — even the 
punishment of death. The first part of this argument would be 
unanswerable if it could be shown that it is for the good of society 
that a criminal should be punished without regard to his good, 
rather than with regard to his good ; but this I think never can be 
shown, — and if not, the argument falls to the ground, and the 
acknowledgement of the criminal only proves how deeply implant- 
ed that most pernicious doctrine may be, that we may sometimes 
at least benefit ourselves by diminishing the well-being of others. 
In the days of persecution the minority acknowledged the right of 
the majority to burn at the stake. It was what they themselves 
intended to do as soon as they obtained power. In those days 
they seemed to think that belief in the doctrines of a creed did not 
depend upon the evidence of their truth, but upon the evidence that 
fire would burn ; for that was all the evidence which the persecu- 
tors deigned to furnish. Had they been acquainted with the laws 
of the human mind, they would have known that, if they had 
furnished as conclusive and satisfactory proofs of the truth of their 
creed as they did that fire would burn, their belief in the one would 
have been as full and unwavering as their belief in the other. 
They would have known, also, that the evidence which they furn- 
ished that fire would burn, though it was perfectly convincing, 
would not in the least degree tend to convince either the one who 
was burned, or any of the spectators, that the articles of any par- 
ticular creed were true which appeared to them to have no connec- 
tion with the proposition "Fire will burn." It was the error of 
the age of persecution that unbelief could be destroyed by fire 
better than by argument : so it is the error of the present day to 



- s fertility and Ptniishmoi/. 

re t li.it the public can be better secured from crimes by pun 
ishing criminals without regard to their good, than by considering 
their good o/ojm in all the punishment which is inflicted upon 
them. They profess to ao( Mom the principle thai it is proper 
and just and useful to the community that criminals should be 
punished without regard to their happiness, for the sake of exam- 
[fthis is the true principle, and utility is really expected to 
the community from example, then do most communities act most 
tsterously to gain this end. If' example is the thing to ben- 
efit the community, then ought punishments to be as public as 
le. Men ought to be chained on the public highways and in 
the streets of our large cities, after they aTe convicted of coriimes, 
that tenor for evil deeds might meet us at every corner; and if 
this wae not sufficient to deter others from the commission of 
crimes, then the severity of punishments ought to he increased. 
The criminals ought to he lashed on the hare hack at stated inter- 
val-, and all the citizens should be invited to attend, that none of 
them might be deprived of the salutary influence which such exam- 
ple might have in deterring them from similar crimes. Care 
ought to he taken not to extend the punishment so far as to 
endanger the life of the patient, for the longer his life lasts and the 
examples of torture he affords, the more henefrcial does he 
become to the community. 

Now how silly do men act, and how inconsistently with their 
<>\vn principles! Some criminals they catch and strangle within 
their prison-walls as quietly as possible, and will not let any one 
be present to derive advantage from this suhlime spectacle, hut 
the sheriff, the turnkey, and the clergyman ; yet it is well known 
that men in general are hut little affected with what they only hear, 
in comparison with what they see. Others they enclose within the 
wall- of a penitentiary, and let no one see them hut the person who 
them food and drink, — and not one in a thousand of the com- 
munity ever think- of them from the time they go in till the time 
they i ome out. 

Men are beginning to act as if they were ashamed and afraid to 
niiiimity see their own laws executed, Jest it might have 
aicious effect on their moral character. The vejy fact that 
men inning to execute capitally in private is a sure symp- 

tom thai ere long the moral feelings of the community will obtain 
a glorious victory over that most pernicious error which it is my 



Accountability and Punishment. m l\) 

chief object to combat in this paper. As soon as it is acknowl- 
edged that it is injurious for the multitude to be present at capital 
punishments, the very corner-stone on which the whole system of 
criminal jurisprudence is now built is removed, and the whole 

fabric must speedily tumble to the dust, [f the community arc not 
to be benefited by the spectacle of capital punishments, men will 
immediately begin to inquire what use there is in punishments. 
They will then soon come to tin; true conclusion that there is no 
utility in them only as they are beneficial to the criminal himself. 
They will then push their inquiries a little further, and they wfll 
soon conclude that the best way to improve the criminal is to 
strengthen his understanding, to elevate his tastes, and to teach 
him the laws of God, and especially that law in which it is enacted 
that no man can benefit himself by doing evil to another. 

Oh glorious day for mankind when this becomes the universal 
sentiment ! All malice and strife will cease, and man will learn 
war no more. Even that universal maxim, that " the best way to 
preserve peace is to be prepared for war," will be abandoned as a 
dangerous principle ; for even the act of preparing for war is cal- 
culated to excite the jealousies and ill will of surrounding nations, 
and the expense of keeping large standing armies is like a mill- 
stone hung round the neck of society to retard their advancement 
in the arts and sciences. When wars cease, men will rapidly ad- 
vance in all that adorns life and makes it desirable. How much 
more rapidly would they advance if all thought of wars was for 
ever removed from the mind ! When rumors of war are spread 
abroad, and preparations for war are commenced, the all-absorbing- 
subject of war takes possession of the mind, and no time is left for 
cultivating the arts of peace, and the evils to society are almost as 
great as when the chariot of actual war is fiercely driven over the 
land. A thousand vices will disappear from the earth when the 
war-spirit becomes extinct, and a thousand virtues will spring up 
in their stead. As soon as all nations shall clearly perceive that 
no two of them can carry on a war without great loss to them- 
selves and to all other nations, all motive to Avar will cease, and 
men will learn to " do unto others as they would have others do unto 
them." Industry will then be directed in the right channels. Iron 
will not be dug out of the bowels of the earth to be melted into 
cannon balls, and then thrown into the ocean at great expense of 
saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal. The immense labor heretofore 



Accountability and Punishment. 

employed in surrounding cities with walls wad ditohes and forts, 
occu] much ground which might be usefully employed in 

ill then be spared to increase the wealth and comforts 
of mankind, and to leave abundance of time bo cultivate the mind 
eading and study, after all necessary comforts and conyen- 
b of life are procured by half the quantity of labor which men 
• w obliged to undergo to obtain a scanty and precarious sub- 
sistence. 

The external comforts which would arise Prom correct views on 
these important points would form a very small portion of the 
whole amount of the increase o( happiness which would be imme- 
• sperienced. It is in the mind o{ man properly cultivated 
that his chief happiness dwells. It is the mind, also, which suffers 
the most poignant anguish, frequently, under false views. What a 
fountain of joy, springing up to eternal happiness, will be laid open 
to our view as Boon as we can sec with the clearness of demonstra- 
tion that everything which occurs, even the most distressing, is 
ordered by infinite power, under the direction of infinite wisdom 
and infinite goodness : and that the greatest evils which occur will 
tend not merely to increase the happiness of the whole universe, but 
especially of the individual on whom the evils fall. Unbounded 
and confiding love of God would then fill our souls, terror and 
i]- would be forever banished from our minds, even when the 
clouds of adversity shrouded our horizon in their darkest hue. It 
would be eternally present to our minds that the justice of God 
required pain to be the consequence of transgression no more than 
his mosi tender mercy ; and that it would be cruel, as well as un- 
just, to withhold that pain from the transgressor which alone could 
t<ach him not to transgress in a similar way again. As soon as we 
shall see that the infinite holiness of God does not require Him. to 
punish transgression of his laws with infinite and eternal punish- 
in. -m, hut rather to cause that pain to follow transgression which 
will tend to prevent transgression in future, our minds will be freed 
from all superstitious dread of almighty vengeance, which is as 
fatal to growth in virtue as to the increase of happiness. 

To punish the transgressor with infinite and eternal punishment 

iona, without intending Up produce the destruction of 

sin, would indicate rather an infinite love of punishment than an 

infinite hatred of sin ; and the best and only way to manifest an 

infinite hatred of sin is to take the best means to root it out of ex- 



Accountability and Punishment. 31 

istence. And it would appear, so far as we can Bee, thai this can 
only be done by the plan Grod lias certainly adopted : to cause 

pain always to follow transgression and happiness always to follow 
obedience, and then to give man the power to discover thai effects 
flow from causes. 

Perhaps it may be objected, that Q-od does not intend thai the 

pain which follows transgression should work out the reformation 
of the transgressor, as it manifestly sometimes does not produce 
that effect. On the contrary, men sometimes seem to get worse 
and worse the more they transgress and the more they suffer for 
the transgression. For example, the drunkard : so far from being 
cured by the headache consequent on a debauch, so far from abhor- 
ring the liquor which he knows by experience stultifies all his 
mental powers, and renders him unfit for a time to enjoy the high 
pleasures of the understanding and the unspeakable joys of domes- 
tic affection, he seeks with increased ardor the delirium of intoxi- 
cation, knowing at the same time that his conduct is hastening 
him down to a premature and disgraceful death, and agonizing 
the feelings of all who love him most. Indeed, so far from drunk- 
enness curing itself by the frightful consequences which God has 
made to follow in its train, it seems to render its victims regard- 
less of all consequences, and even to invert the nature of man so 
far as to cause him to choose misery in preference to happiness, 
and that, too, at the expense of making those wretched who are 
united to him by the dearest ties of consanguinity and affinity. 
Now, it may be said that as God does not cure the drunkard by 
the pain which He causes to follow drunkenness, He does not cause 
the pain with the intention of curing ; for He can not be frustrated 
in his intentions. 

To all this it may be answered, that though the pain of drunk- 
enness does not always prevent future intoxication, yet this pain 
may have its utility. We are not sure but that the man who 
even kills himself by continued drunkenness may die with a more 
thorough hatred of drunkenness than one who has never been 
drunk. He knows its evils by sad experience. If it is asked. 
Why, then, did he not abandon the practice ? the answer may 
perhaps be, that a state of disease was produced by the habit of 
intoxication which so affected the body that nothing short of death 
could cure it, and yet the disembodied spirit may depart to the 
other world with the utmost loathing of all intemperance — a 



[ccountability and Puuis/nuait. 

Ing increased by having experienced the effects of intemper- 
ance here. 

It would be illogical to infer that, because Q-od docs not always 
cure a disease bj the pain which arises from that disease whilst 
the patient is in this world, therefore God never intends to cure 
the disease. God is constantly using means to overcome igno- 
rance — his whole universe is one great system o( instruction ; \vt 
Be advances but a very small distance in producing perfect wis- 
dom, even in the brightest intelligences, whilst they are in (his 
world : ami yet it would he manifestly absurd to infer that (Un\ 
will not succeed in making us extremely wise in millions of years 
alter our departure from tins world. Now it may be that the dis- 
ease of the body produced by repeated intoxication is incurable, 
yet the soul may awake from its stupor in the world of spirits 
with a hatred of all intemperance and an inexpressible joy at find- 
ing itself tired from the miserable clog of clay, which it now per- 
- was the only impediment which hindered it at once from 
rising into the pure regions of intelligence and bliss. 

But even if the case of the drunkard, and perhaps some others, 
can not be explained in accordance with the doctrine advanced in 
this paper, the general principle may still be true, that the pain 
which God has caused to follow transgression is intended to lead 
to reformation. Besides, who can tell how many are prevented 
From becoming confirmed drunkards by considering the horrible 
state to which they and their families would be reduced if they 
yielded to the temptation of continued intoxication ? 

ft appear*, then, highly probable that in this case, as in all 
others, the tendency of the pain consequent upon transgression is 
to produce reformation in all minds possessing sufficient reason to 
discover that pain is the result of the transgression ; and therefore 
'ac may safely infer that God designed this tendency when he 
arranged it so that pain should follow transgression. Nay, fur- 
ther, QoA floes not always wait till the commission of the overt 
aet of transgression before He commences the punishment. He has 
beautifully and wisely and mercifully arranged it so that the pun- 
ishment j\ extemporaneous with the first thought of committing 
the transgression, even before the design is formed or the plan laid. 
The punishment begins thus early evidently with the design to 
prevent, the overt &ct, and sometimes even the completion of the 
design to commit, the overt act. 



Accountability and Punishment. 33 

What an untold amount of crime is prevented by this most 
benevolent arrangement ! How much Buffering is avoided by 
using an ounce of prevention instead of a pound of cure ! J low 
much more beautiful is such a plan as this, and how much more 
efficient in advancing the moral education of rational beings, 
than any plan which would defer the punishment for a long 
time after the commission of the transgression ! If God had 
caused happiness to be the result of transgression of his laws 
in this world and misery in the next, such an arrangement would 
seem like a plan to entrap us into crime, for all our experience 
would then lead us to believe that crimes are true means of hap- 
piness. Such a scheme was never made by a wise and benevo- 
lent God. 

Perhaps it may be objected to the system which I have here 
presented, that it represents God as acting inconsistently with hi.s 
own plans and determinations. In a former part of this paper, it 
may be said I endeavored to prove that God designed that man 
should commit moral evil, and in the latter part I have endeavored 
to show that God has made the best possible contrivances to pre- 
vent moral evil, and to cure that which is not prevented. To this 
objection I answer : that God did certainly intend, as was demon- 
strated before, all the moral evil which exists, and no more, and 
the contrivances which He has made to prevent moral evil are 
intended not to prevent that which takes place, but that which 
would take place without these contrivances. God, in his infinite 
wisdom, sees that the ignorance of man would lead him eternally 
astray from the path of rectitude, if He did not hedge in this path 
with thorns and thistles, which, by their pungent stings, would 
warn the traveller, at every deviation, that he must immediately 
return. 

It may be objected, also, that the system here advocated places 
the revealed will of God in his Word in contradiction to his secret 
will in his decrees ; that his revealed will is that man should com- 
mit no transgressions, but that his secret will is that he should 
commit all the transgressions which he does commit. To this 
objection I answer : that there is no contradiction between the 
revealed and secret will of God. The Word of God is a revelation 
of his laws, and not at all a revelation of his will that those laws 
shall not be broken. If God willed that his laws should not be 
broken, they never would be broken ; for what God wills must come 
3 



$4 Accountability and Punishment* 

to pass, His written W ord is onlj i different form of instructing 
: - ationai creatures what to do and what not to <lo to Becure 
their highest happiness, h comes in aid of their experience as to 
the effects of actions on their happiness or misery, It is kind 
advice given by a most affectionate Father: Do this, and be 
happy — avoid that, or be miserable. It nowhere says that God's 
will or determination is that we shall not disobey. This advice, 
tike the pain we experience from transgression, or even from the 
thought of transgression, is intended not to hinder us from the 
transgressions which we actually commit, but from those we 
would commit without the aid of this advice. God lias deter- 
mined that we shall commit no more transgressions than we 
actually do commit, and lie has taken effectual means to insure 
that result. 1 think, also, we may safely conclude, from the 
means which we sec in operation, that it is his determination that 
we -hall commit fewer and fewer transgressions the longer we 
until finally, when w r e become perfectly wise, transgres- 
sion will become impossible. In this process our free agency 
will all the time remain unimpaired. Our liability to sin will 
evidently diminish with the increase of our wisdom and goodness, 
whilst our free agency will constantly remain the same. Nor 
is it necessary that man should become infinitely wise to render 
transgression in him impossible ; it is enough that his wisdom 
be coextensive with his sphere of action, so that nothing should 
be presented to his mind leading to action beyond his sphere 
of knowledge. Now, as man's sphere of action is limited, we 
may well conceive that his knowledge, which is constantly in- 
ing in this world, and will probabty increase much faster in 
the next, will become so extensive in millions of years that no 
proposition could then he proposed to him which he could not 
mine as to its evil or good consequences; and as God never 
will, to all eternity, cause,' happiness to be the result of the trans- 
ion of his laws, this knowledge is all that is necessary to 
transgression impossible — especially when we consider 
that man never can have his nature so changed that he can prefer 
misery to happiness ; and to prefer the known causes of misery to 
the known causes of happiness would be the same as preferring 
th • misery itself. 

\ } < rhaps it may he objected that I have based all my reasonings, 
in this paper, on the supposition that man is a purely intellectual 



Accountability and Punishment. 35 

being, and that all hie volitions arise from the dictates of the un- 
derstanding, whereas it is manifest that he is not purely intellec- 
tual, and that very many of his volitions aie chiefly influenced 
by his passions, and still more by his habits — and that, too, so 
suddenly that his rational powers have no linn- to act before the 
volition is made ; and hence it is inferred that man may still be 
liable to transgress the law of God, even after he becomes perfect 
in knowledge, if thai time should ever arrive. This objection, 
however plausible, is easily answered. I acknowledge that many 
of our volitions are influenced by our passions, and many depend 
on our habits, as completely as the volitions of beasts depend on 
instinct ; and I have no doubt that we are formed by the Creator 
with the capacity of acquiring habits, and being influenced by 
them, for the wisest purposes. Without such a capacity man 
would be in many respects inferior to the beasts, and, indeed, 
would be altogether unfitted for an inhabitant of this world. But 
habits themselves may be examined by reason, and approved or 
condemned as they shall appear useful or injurious to our happi- 
ness ; and there is no bad habit, however confirmed by long use, 
that can not be corrected by long continued and repeated efforts. 
I will not say that the converse of this proposition is true : that 
good habits, when once confirmed by long use, can be changed 
to bad ; for good habits, when examined by reason, will be ap- 
proved, and, of course, no efforts will be made to change them. 
Thus they will remain forever as parts of our very self, eternally 
ready to lead us to make proper volitions on all subjects within 
the sphere of their influence. Hence, it is manifestly true, if you 
bring up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not 
depart from it. But Solomon nowhere says, Bring up a child in 
the way he should not go, and when he is old he will not depart 
from it. 

All nature is a great s}^stem of education, and we are con- 
stantly reminded by some pain or inconvenience, every time we 
deviate from the path of rectitude and virtue, to examine the 
cause of this pain, and to try to find a remedy and the means of 
avoiding it in future. If it originates from a bad habit, we see it 
is our interest to begin immediately to correct that habit ; ami, 
knowing that bad habits of long standing can only be overcome 
by long-continued efforts, and a firm determination to succeed, we 
do not despair of obtaining a victory in the end, though our first 



Accountability and Punishment. 

may appeal to be unattended with success, It is acknowl- 
: 1 1 • • n . that many of our volitions are under the influence of 
habit, and not decided by reasoB at the moment ; yet, as the habits 
themselves are Bubjed to reason, to change or modify them accord- 
I to the dictates of the understanding, it seems that we may 
lv draw the conclusion on this point which we drew before, 
that wl ecome perfect in knowledge we will be able to sec 

ariy any bad habit which we may have acquired, and know how 
come it in the shortest possible time — and when that is 
ited, transgression will be impossible. 
.Many of our volitions also arise from our passions, or at least 
are very much influenced by them ; and as our passions are blind 
Instincts, and altogether incapable of deciding at all times how 
far it will ho to our true interest to indulge them, it is inferred on 
this ground, that transgressions may continue from the impulse of 
passion long after we become perfectly wise. But neither is this 
i conclusion ; for it is one of the principal prerogatives of 
to guide the impulses of passion, and say to each, Thus 
far 6- /n/lt thou go, and no farther. And we know by experience 
that many men, even in this early period of existence, when pas- 
sion i- strong and reason is weak, so restrain their passions that 
but little evil arises from their indulgence ; we may then, I think, 
[y infer that the time will come when the passions will become 
servants and not the masters of reason. This conclusion appears 
be more unexceptionable when we consider, what is known 
to he the fact, that superstition, in some of its vagaries — taking 
it for granted that the indulgence of some of our strongest pas- 
sion- was sinful — has been able, not indeed to extirpate the pas- 
sion, but to giant it no indulgence ; if, then, superstition has been 
aid'-, fighting against nature, to produce such an unexpected result 
to the great injury of the individual, shall we deny to Omnipotent 
Reason, acting in harmony with nature, the power of so directing 
the impulses of passion as to result in good and only good con- 
tinually ? 

■■ in to t.li ink that man, in his present imperfect state, 
could avoid transgressing the law of God altogether; but this is 
manifestly impossible, for many of the laws of God are unknown 
to the brightest intellects till the day of their death ; and when we 
begin to act in infancy all of his laws are unknown to us — even 
the law of gravitation has to be learned by manya painful thump. 



Accountability and Punishment. 37 

Nor docs it impeach the mercy or goodness of God to command 
us not to transgress, and to punish tie or give us pain when we do 
transgress; for these commands and the pains resulting from trans- 
gression are intended as a system of instruction, to enable us 

finally to know and obey all his laws. They are evidently not 
intended to make us perfectly wise in an instant, for they do not 
produce that effect, and, so far as we can sec, it is Impossible they 
should; and if they can not make us perfectly wise in an instant, 

they can not in an instant place us in a situation to keep all the 
laws of God. 

Everything great and good which God creates is done in a 
gradual manner, and we know of nothing greater than the mind 
of man hut the Creator himself. The oak is increasing for cen- 
turies in majesty and strength. The earth has required thou- 
sands of centuries to attain its present state of comfort and con- 
venience for man, and man will be increasing in knowledge and 
excellence when millions of ages have rolled away. Whether 
he will continue to transgress and suffer after death we have 
no means of knowing ; the probability is, from the mere prin- 
ciples of reason, that man will continue to transgress as long as 
he is ignorant, and that he will continue to suffer as long as he 
transgresses. It is, however, quite plain that the whole amount 
of suffering from transgression will be a mere infinitesimal when 
compared with the amount of enjoyment which will arise from 
obedience. For we can see clearly, that even in this world it 
will be so as soon as the principles contained in this paper 
are universally believed and acted upon, both by governments 
and individuals — and this will certainly be the case at no very 
distant day. Whenever, in the providence of God, the world 
arrives at a state in which any one can conceive and clearly 
demonstrate the means of improving the condition of man, the 
public opinion will soon rise to a point where it will be possible 
to put those means into operation. Men are beginning to see that 
wars are always injurious, not merely to the belligerents, but to 
the whole world ; they are beginning to doubt the propriety oi' 
punishing capitally before the assembled multitude. The next 
step, and one, too, which must be taken when men have advanced 
thus far, will be to abandon forever the law o\' force for fche law of 
kindness ; and when the law of kindness is once adopted, it will 
never be abandoned. Men are made to advance, and not to retro- 



:,s Accoufitohility and PwUshment. 

e made to rise, and not to fall, The nature of the 
human mind leads to this conclusion, and the history of the world 
establishes the Fact, 

Ait er all, ii may be said by some that, in the present state of 
the world, it would lead to licentiousness to teach the multitude 
the doctrines contained and advocated in this paper, and if so, it 
is a strong presumption against the truth of the doctrine 
. for truth must always be beneficial to mankind. I acknowl- 
ihat all who have been brought up in the doctrines which 
have heretofore prevailed on the nature of moral accountability 
and punishment would immediately infer that men ought neither 
to be blamed nor punished for any violation of God's law, if it is 
better for them and all mankind that they should commit the very 
transgression which they did commit, and especially if it is God's 
will that they should commit it ; on the contrary, they infer that 
men ought to be as well pleased with others and with themselves, 
when they commit murders and thefts, as when they perform the 
volant and disinterested acts of charity. And they in- 
sist that, whether this is a just conclusion from the premises or 
not, as it is one which would he drawn, it is proof conclusive that 
the doctrine ought not to he taught. Now, I answer, that there 
is no doubt that ''truth, the. whole truth, and nothing hut the 
truth," is better for man than falsehood or error, and the nearer 
pproximate to the truth on any subject the better. And if 
raid be shown that the doctrines of this essay lead to licen- 
tiousness, when properly understood, it would be conclusive proof 
insi their truth. 
Jt will not do to show that false deductions from the doctrines 
will lead to licentiousness: this would rather prove the doctrines 
to be true. To what dreadful evils have false deductions from 
Christianity led ! False deductions from false principles may 
lead to good; but false deductions from true principles can lead 
only to evil. J > 1 1 1 the conclusion that men ought not to be pun- 
ished for their transgressions is not false, and will not lead to evil, 
bur to the greatest good ; it will free men from the absurdity of 
endeavoring by punishment to change the past, instead of direct! 

to the future; and, as was said before, it will 

nt men from punishing from a principle of vengeance. Bu| 
an absolute non sequitur to say that we ought to be as well 
■A with ourselves when we transgress the law of God as 



Accountability and Punishment. 39 

when we obey ; because it would be the same as Baying we ought 
to be as fond of pain as we are of pleasure, which would be the 
same as saying we ought to change our natures, and not to be 
what we are. There is no philosophy which can ever have the 

slightest tendency to make us fond of pain and averse to happi- 
ness, and, of course, it will always be Impossible for us to look 
with pleasure on the transgression of God's law, knowing, at the 
same time, that transgression will always be followed with pain ; 
yet even here much anguish may be avoided by correct views. 
The only use of repentance and sorrow for transgression is to 
produce reformation : if that can be effected without the pain of 
sorrow, so much the better. Now, true philosophy ought to teach 
us to rejoice whenever we have discovered the cause of any evil 
produced by a transgression of the law of God, so that we may 
avoid the evil in future. It is in vain to sit down and weep over 
what can not be changed ; we ought to save our strength for fu- 
ture action. Why may not the time arrive when we will be truly 
grateful to any one who will clearly demonstrate to us that we are 
wrong, either in our reasoning or in our conduct ? Such a one 
would undoubtedly be our benefactor, and therefore would deserve 
our gratitude. 

Again, the doctrines here taught never will be received as true 
by those who think they lead to licentiousness, and therefore they 
will not operate injuriously on their minds, except it be to raise a 
spirit of persecution against the advocates of them. The abolish- 
ment of the present Criminal Code, and the establishment of a new 
one founded on true principles, will never take place until the 
great body of the people are enlightened enough to see that the 
present system leads to the production of the crimes which it is 
intended to prevent. As long as the community shall believe 
that the fear of punishment is the most effectual preventative of 
crime the present system will be continued, and perhaps it is better 
it should. Fear is, no doubt, implanted in the human mind for 
wise purposes, and in the low stages of our existence it may he 
used as a motive ; but the sooner it can be supplanted by higher 
motives the better ; and as soon as it is supplanted it will become 
useless and obsolete. Whether the time will ever come when the 
motive of fear will be entirely abandoned, both by parents in the 
education of their children and by States in the correction of crim- 
inals, it is not for us to say. Certain it is, that the principle of 



Ace untabdity and Punishment. 

ufl j parents and States in proportion as thej are 
ightened. 
r haps it may be thought unsatisfactory to deduoe from the 
the Deity only, and not from experience and an ex- 
amination of facts, the great principle which lies at the foun- 
i of the system advocated above, namely, the true interest* 
mkind never clash. As it relates to the present life, where 
wo ha rienoe of the causes of happiness and misery, the 

objection is worthy of consideration : as to the life to conic, we 
have no means of knowing by experience, either that there will be 
a continuance of our conscious existence after death, or thai we 
will be happy. Once, however, establish that there is a Grod of 
infinite power, wisdom and goodness, then, if we grant that it 
will be better for us to exist happy to all eternity than to be anni- 
hilated at death, it will follow, without a doubt, that we will so 
exisl : for whatever is better to be done, a God of infinite pcrfec- 
- will inevitably do, as was before demonstrated. 
indeed, it could be shown that conscious existence is impos- 
sible to US while united to our material bodies, then, however 
able it might appear to exist happy after death, it would im- 
ply no absurdity to say that a God of infinite perfections could 
>nfer on us a happy immortality ; but no such impossibility 
can be shown or even rendered probable. 

If this life comprises the whole of human existence, then, so far 
as man is concerned, this whole world is a complete failure, at 
which every rational creature would incline to hiss with scorn, 
than exult, I am now sixty years old, and during' the 
whole of my life I have been placed in circumstances 

calculated to produce as large a sum of happiness as falls to 
the lol of the most favored individuals. In my childhood and 
youth poor, humble ami obscure, stimulated with a strong desire 
of knowledge and endowed with a mind capable of acquiring it, I 
ally advanced from one degree of knowledge to another, 
until finally I was enabled to unfold mysteries in meteorology 
: had been bidden from every previous examiner. The cur- 
theatre of the atmosphere was drawn up, and I 
admitted behind the scenes, into the very council chamber of 
the ( when not only the modu* operandi in producing 

storms, but the final causes of many most beautiful contrivances, 
laid Open to my delighted view. I have lived to see these 



Accountability and Punishment. 41 

discoveries acknowledged by the scientific world, and in some de- 
gree appreciated ; and during the progress of these discoveries and 
this appreciation, I have derived from them no ordinary degree of 
happiness: yet I do not hesitate to declare thai if, in the midst of 

my most exalted emotions of pleasure, 1 had been convinced that 
there is no God to whom all these beautiful contrivances could be 
referred, and that this life terminates tin; conscious existence of 
man, 1 should have felt at the same moment that the cup of happi- 
ness was torn from my lips and dashed to the ground. What ! 
wakened into existence, and educated for a few short years, to 
know the unspeakable value of an immortality of happiness, merely 
to be told that this immortality shall not be mine ! It is a mock- 
ery which can only exist on supposition that there is no God, and 
that things begin to exist without cause and without object. 
What ! bring a being into existence without knowledge, but with 
the capacity of acquiring knowledge and improving indefinitely — 
educate him up ( for all nature is a system of education ) to a 
state in which he begins to know how to live and how to enjoy, 
and then strike him out of existence ! It is an improbability 
which could not result from blind chance once in a million of 
times, even if chance were an agent ; and never from a Benevolent 
Intelligence. Much less could a Benevolent Intelligence bring into 
existence a being capable of increasing in knowledge and virtue for 
a few years, and then place him in a situation where no increase 
of knowledge would be of any use to him, and where his sensibility 
would be preserved only to render him capable of suffering un- 
mingled pain without end, and where he could not even have the 
mournful consolation of putting an end to his torments by termi- 
nating his existence. To some minds, the horrible injustice and 
cruelty of such a proceeding would be heightened if the tormenter 
had arranged his plans from all eternity to create the being thus to 
be tormented with just such dispositions and such a degree of de- 
fective knowledge as would, when placed in certain circumstances 
determined on, inevitably lead to the violations of the laws for 
which he was afterwards to be punished to all eternity, without 
any intention of benefiting him by the punishment. Indeed, so 
revolting is the latter notion to some minds, who nevertheless 
think it is necessary to believe in a hell of never-ending torment, 
they have adopted the following system, which seems to them to 
relieve the Deity from the odium oi being the tormenter himself: 



Accountability and PioiisJnncnt. 

I ..; "God could not create man without endowing 

him with Free will, and that in consequence of this five will, man 
might bo change his nature, which was originally created capable 
o\ deriving happiness from goodness alone, as to derive the only 
pleasure he Bhould then be capable of enjoying from wickedness, 
or doing evil to others — thai this nature will remain depraved 
to all eternity, and thus he will be prompted to Ao evil to others, 
in order to procure for himself the only pleasure his nature is capa- 
ble of receiving, and thai (*od is constantly restraining him from 
doing evil, as much as is consistent with his free will." 

Bow llf restrains beings from evil, when at the same linn 4 the 
nature of these beings is such, that the only pleasure which they 
enjoy is from the mischief or evil which they do to others, is not 
explained: nor i- any attempt made to show that G-od is not the 
author of all this e\ il ; as lie certainly is, as it arises out of the 
circumstances in which man was placed, whether he was originally 
created with a nature capable of deriving pleasure only from vice, 
or whether that nature was acquired after his creation. God, then, 
by this system, is not freed from the odium of punishing a, portion 
of his intelligent creatures with eternal punishment, without any 
intention of benefiting them ; and besides, He is inadvertently 
accused of having formed men so that a portion of them would be 
stimulated to all eternity by the strongest motives which we can 
live of, t<> heap new torments on each other. Such a system, 
we may safely say, could not be devised by an infinitely good 
and therefore it does not exist. As it relates to this present 
life, however, it is proper to inquire, not merely what nature man 
might to have, consistent with the infinite perfections of the Con- 
triver, but. what nature, in point of fact, he has, so far as we can 
rtain by the mosi careful observation. 

Now if any one will turn his attention inwards, he will discover 
thai our chief happiness consists in our benevolent affections, in 
oiii- emotions of kindness and good-will towards others, arid in 
the consciousness that the manifestation of these kind emotions 
pleasure to those we associate with. Indeed, our love of 
• nice of much greater happiness to us than our love 
of ourselves; for even in our solitary moments if is a source of 
unspeakable joy to reflect, that our kind offices are received and 
returned with kindneSfi by those we, love, and that, their happiness 

is thu$ increased through our instrumentality. Now these kind 



Accountability and Punishment. 43 

affections, more or less strong, are implanted in every human 
breast. They are always at their posts, frequently not less active 

in the illiterate than in those whose intellects are highly cultivated, 
and they never let as rest satisfied without doing good ; their very 
object is the happiness of others. Yet our own happiness exists in 
the very exercise of kind feelings ; and it' self-love and social are 
not identically the same, our own happiness and thai of others is 
promoted by the self-same means. Nothing could be more admi- 
rably contrived for the production of happiness to the whole sys- 
tem than this arrangement. 

Again, when we turn our attention to the intellectual part of out 
nature, and consider the joys attending the pursuit and discovery 
of truth, though it appears that we are stimulated to exertion in 
this field chiefly by the pleasure we ourselves experience in the 
exercise of the intellectual powers, which seems of a more selfish 
character than the exercise of our benevolent affections, yet it is so 
arranged that the result of our investigations is for the good of 
mankind ; for every truth that we discover is connected with some 
good, which could be procured for the benefit of all only by the 
discovery of the truth. 

When we reflect on this arrangement, we can not help admiring 
the goodness and wisdom of the Creator in thus causing our selfish 
pursuit of truth to result in the universal good of mankind, while 
at the same time our individual happiness is secured — first, by 
giving us a high relish for intellectual pursuits, and second, by 
gratifying our benevolent affections, when we reflect that our labors 
are beneficial to mankind. 

Again, by pushing our inquiries still further, we will discover 
that there are no ingredients infused into our constitutions whose 
object is to produce unhappiness. We have no principle of male- 
volence or ill-will towards the human race. It is true, we some- 
times feel angry at a particular individual ; but this passion is 
always excited by some real or supposed ill-will or injustice on 
the part of the individual towards us, and the paroxysm is gener- 
ally of short duration, and while it lasts is generally quite as 
painful to the one who feels the passion as to the one against 
whom it is directed. Besides, there is a general tendency in 
nature to abolish the causes of anger and resentment by edu- 
cating us up to see that the object of anger and resentment, the 
correction of the offender, may be much better effected by kindness 



U Accom tal 7/7y rtwc£ Punishment* 

\ harshness and violence. As to revenge, 
- - lorn such a feeling arising in the human breast, and 
when a person imagines be has been treated with the 
greatest injustice or insult. This feeling will never be excited, 
t, become extinct, w 1 hm i men shall treat each other 
with undeviating kindness and justice, Indeed, before that period 
shall arrive, much that tends to excite anger and resentment would 
ae away, if children should be taught from their earliest in- 
k on their fellows as possessing noble and exalted 
natures, loving justice and kindness, and invariably disposed to 
be kind to those that are kind to them ; that G-od is never angry 
with them, but Looks with tender compassion when they mistake 
the means of procuring happiness : and if, added to this, they 
should never see their parents angry at each other or with them, 
but, overcoming all their waywardness and disohed ienee hy kind* 
tleness, who can say how much the happiness of the 
world would be increased in a single generation! The pain of 
• iii one side, and the resentment and sense of injustice and 
tyranny on the other, would he avoided, and the worst of all 
res to action, fear, would never he introduced into the mind 
of the child. Hie most perfect confidence would thus he estab- 
lished on both sides, and there being no temptation to deceive from 
the Bear of punishment, which is the ^reat fountain of untruthful- 
if the child should never he deceived himself, it is probable, 
under these benign influences, he would seldom or never deviate 
from the -i rictest truth. 

In early youth, "thought is speech and speech is truth ; " and 
would continue if the true system of education were univer- 
sally adopted. Under the system which is now prevalent, chil- 
frequently placed in circumstances where they think it is 
to tell a falsehood to ;ivoid a greater evil, as they sup- 
' is, their fear of punishment is greater than their fear 
of lying. Indeed, in some cases the cxnselty of parents seems 
almost to justify the deception which is practiced upon them by 
their children. Were a madman fce meet us on the edge of a pre- 
cipice from which we had no means of escaping, and with drawn 
I order us to jump down or he would run us through, we 
would feel oui justified in saying to him: "Oh! any one 

. -jump down, but we will do something much more won- 
down and we will jump up ! " A child is some- 



Accountability and Punishment. 45 

times as much terrified at the threats of a parent as we would be 

in the situation above. 
The greal evil of this system is, that the child discovert he can 

frequently benefit himself by lying, which he is taughl to believe 
wrong — audit is quite Datura] that, alter he experiences benefit 

from one wrong, lie should draw the inference that another mighf 
benefit him also. Thus he is gradually led to believe thai the 
interests of all mankind arc not the same, but thai he may some- 
times benefit himself by diminishing the well-being of others — 
that fatal error from which all crimes spring. There is one fact 
highly consolatory on this subject. This highly pernicious error, 
even when it becomes the most deeply rooted, never destroys our 
benevolence ; hence, when we do evil to others for the sake of 
promoting our own happiness, our benevolent feelings are always 
wounded. This is the regenerating principle ; for as the benevo- 
lent feelings are part of ourselves, and as the error in question is 
only acquired by a false education, the false must finally yield to 
the true, after a long course of painful experiments. 

It was said above, that no ingredients or principles are infused 
into our constitutions whose object is to produce unhappiness, and 
yet it can not be denied that we are placed in circumstances which 
operate on our nature in such a manner as to produce inevitably 
errors of judgment and errors of conduct, which cause a lament- 
able amount of human misery. 

Some have thought that a strong argument to prove a future 
state of existence may be drawn from the fact that the best men 
suffer a great deal of misery in this life which they do not deserve, 
and they infer that a just God is bound to remunerate them for all 
this suffering in a life to come. I confess the argument appears, 
to my mind, much stronger when drawn from the sufferings of the 
worst men. The best men experience much more happiness, and 
suffer much less misery, than the worst, and would have much less 
reason to complain of injustice in the Creator if they were struck 
out of existence at death, than the worst men, whose sufferings 
are tenfold greater ; and as all their wickedness and suffering 
formed a part of the great plan of the universe, it seems certain, 
if those who suffered least have a right to expect a continuation 
of existence after death and remuneration for their suffering here — 
a fortiori, those who have suffered most have a right to expect the 
same remuneration. 



Accountability and Punishment, 

This conclusion so manifestly follows, on the supposition that 
I - - cnniscient, thai it needs only to be stated to be seen ; and 
even on the supposition that th- 1 c\ lis which arise in the workings 
of the system which God has introduced were unexpected, stir! the 
Bame conclusion is true, for if any unexpected evil arises toa being 
whom God brought into existence, whether it comes upon him 
with or without the consent y^\ bis will, justice requires that he 
should l>o remunerated, if his Creator has i( in his power to grant 
the remuneration. 

8 tie have thought that the justice of (lod could not be im- 

. provided every being which He brings into existence has 

such a balance of happiness over misery as would induce him to 

existence to non-existence. But the justice of the Deity is 

not to be decided by the preference of the individual for existence : 

the question is, Could the Deity cause him to enjoy more happi- 

i b given time, or could He, by continuing the system for- 

cause it so to work as to produce to every one an amount 

of happiness greater than all the misery which it is necessary he 

should experience in the early stages of his existence? If this is 

possible, the goodness and justice of the Deity render it certain 

that it will be. 

Perhaps it may be thought that the mode of reasoning adopted 
here proves too much, and therefore is not correct. In point of 
fact it may be said, that millions of the human family are mani- 
festly not placed in the best possible situations for the enjoyment 
of happiness. They are born into a world where the soil is pre- 
occupied, from which alone they are to procure their bread. Spin- 
jennies and steam-engines are invented and in the hands of 
the wealthy, which renders it impossible to procure the means of 
support with their hands, the only machines furnished them by 
nature. The cravings of hunger compel them to employ their 
time in that most painful and degrading labor, begging, without 
the pleasure of adding anything to the common stock of wealth. 
I are deprived of almost all tin; pleasures of intellectual cul- 
ture, and the joy of contributing in a high degree to the happiness 
there ; and at the sexual pleasure is the only one within their 
reach, it, would appear that the care of Providence is much more 
directed towards the production of human beings than towards 
their happiness a iter they are produced. 

\or are the rich placed in the most favorable circumstances for 



Accountability and Punishment. 47 

the enjoyment of happiness. The temptations which accompany 
wealth are harder to resist than those which attend poverty. Pros- 
perity is harder to hear with equanimity than adversity; and it 
may he safely said that a good education and poverty are the b< 

patrimony that ever was left by a patent to his child. When a 

child is brought up with the knowledge that lie i> born to the 
inheritance of wealth, it frequently happens that he has not stim- 
ulus enough to exertion, which is necessary for the health both 

of body and mind. He is more likely to grow up proud, and 
overhearing, and irritable, in consequence of his want of constant 
oceupation — feelings that stand in the way of happiness. Thus 
it may be said, that if the object of the Deity is to produce as much 
happiness as possible, He is as much bound to prevent men from 
being too rich as from being too poor. But neither is this objec- 
tion well founded, for it is directed not against any principles 
essential to human nature, which w r ere before examined and found 
to be all good, but against the state of society as at present exist- 
ing. Now, all the evils of the present state of society have arisen 
out of ignorance, and ignorance was shown before to be unavoid- 
able. As soon as society becomes wise enough to see that it will 
be as much 4o the interest of the rich as of the poor that provision 
shall be made for every child that is born, that he be w r ell educated 
and provided with employment after he grows up, sufficient to 
free him from all fear of want, provided he uses a moderate de- 
gree of industry, the evils here complained of will cease : and it 
would be as unreasonable to suppose that God could educate 
society up to this state of knowledge in a minute, as that He could 
create an earth in the same time. It is sufficient to "justify the 
ways of God to man " to show that He is using the most effectual 
means to bring about this most desirable end. 

If there is any value in creation at all ( and that there is who 
can doubt ? ), it would seem, as far as we can judge, that it would 
have been better for God to have created the earth millions of years 
sooner than He did, so that sensitive beings might have been 
enjoying happiness all this time, and thus it would seem that there 
would be a great deal more happiness in the universe than there is. 
Now, the only inference which can be drawn from the perfections 
of God on this subject is, that it was impossible for the world to 
have been created sooner, otherwise God has not done all the good 
which he could, and consequently is not, on this supposition, infi- 



I s . i • •■> tmtabSKty and l^tu'mhmvnt. 

■a conclusion thai can not be adrititted, unless it is 

shown that the universe could have been created sooner ; but 

this never can be shown. Certainly t ho earth was being created 

millions of yean before it became a lit habitation for man; and 

even yel it is becoming more and more comfortable every day for 

who are brought into existence upon it. Thus if we who 

are brought into existence notes have not enjoyed happiness as 

long as those who lived first on tin 4 earth, preparations have been 

made for us to enjoy more happiness In a given fcime than (hey did. 

\ aly is the physical world better prepared for our reception, 

hut the moral and intellectual ; for every truth which has been 

rered tends to increase tin 4 enjoyments of men; and Moral 

Philosophy itself, however high-sounding its name, is but the 

science ol living well. It is in no respects superior to Physical 

Science, unless it contributes more to human happiness. 



THE HUMAN WILL. 



[Extracts from the work of Albert Taylor Bledsoe, on the Will'] 

'/This, then, is the true idea of a free agent : it is one who, in 
view of circumstances, both external and internal, can act with- 
out being efficiently caused to do so. This is the idea of a free 
agent which God has realized by the creation of the soul of man. 
It may be a mystery ; but it is not a contradiction. It may be a 
mystery ; but it solves a thousand difficulties which we have un- 
necessarily created to ourselves. It may be a mystery ; but then 
it is the only safe retreat from self-contradiction, absurdity, and 
atheism.' ' — p. 219. 

"It is freely conceded that whatever God foreknows will most 
certainly and infallibly come to pass. He foreknows all human 
volitions ; and, therefore, they will most certainly and infallibly 
come to pass, in some manner or other : the bare fact of their 
future existence is clearly established, by God's foreknowledge of 
them. And if all human volitions will be brought to pass by 
the operation of moral causes, then this manner of their existence 
is foreknown to God, and they will all come to pass in this way ; 
but to take this for granted, is to beg the question. We have 
just as much right to suppose that God foreknows that the voli- 
tions of moral agents are not necessitated, as the necessitarian 
has to suppose the contrary ; and then it would follow that our 
volitions are necessarily free, or without any producing causes. " — 
p. 141. 

"There is no need of lugging the foreknowledge of God into 
the present controversy, except it be to deceive the mind. For 
all future events will certainly and infallibly come to pass, whether 
they are foreknown or not ; and foreknowledge can not make the 
matter any more certain than it is without it. If God should 
4 



The Human Will, 

06*86 to foreknow all future volitions, or if He had never known 
them, the] would, nevertheless, jusl as certainly and infallibly 
oome to pass, as if he had foreknown them From all eternity. 
The bare, uaked fad thai they are future infers all thai is implied 
in God's foreknowledge of them." — p. 148, 

"Let the necessitarian show that God can qo1 foresee future 
events, unless He have determined to bring them to pass, or unless 
they are brought to pass by a chain of producing causes, ulti- 
mately connected with Iris own will, and he will prove something 
to the purpose." — p. 147. 

•• Has volition an efficient cause? I answer, No. lias it a 
sufficient 'ground and reason' of its existence? I answer, Yes. 
,ie ever imagined that there are no indispensahle antecedents 
to choice, without which it could not take place. Unless there is 
a mind, there could he no act of the mind ; and unless the mind 
possessed a power of acting, it could not put forth volitions. The 
mind, then, and the power of the mind called will, constitute the 
ground of action or volition. 

" But a power to act, it will he said, is not a sufficient reason to 
account for the existence of action. This is true. The reason is 
to come. The sufficient reason, however, is not an efficient cause ; 
for there is some difference between a blind impulse or force, and 
rationality. The mind is endowed with various appetites, passions, 
and desires — with noble affections, and above all, with a feeling 
of moral approbation and disapprobation. These are not the ' ac- 
tive principles,' or the 'motive powers/ as they are called, — they 
are the ends of our acting ; w r e simply act in order to gratify them. 
; t no influence over the will, much less is the will con- 
trolled by them, and hence we are perfectly free to gratify the one 
or the other of them ; to act in obedience to the dictates of con- 
science, or to gratify the lowest appetites of our natures. We see 
thai certain means must be used in order to gratify the passion, 
. affection or feeling which we intend to gratify, and we act 
accordingly. In this we form our designs or intentions free from 
all influence whatever : nothing acts upon the will; we fix upon 
the end, and we choose the means to accomplish it. We adopt 
the means to the end, because there is a fitness in them to accom- 
plish that end or desire ; and because, as rational creatures, we 
Lve that fitness. We act with a view to our desires, but not 
from the influence of our desires ; and our volition is virtuous or 



/ 



The Human Will. 51 

vicious, according to the intention with which it is put forth — 
according to the design with which it is directed. 

" Passion is not * the gale/ — it is 'the card.' Reason is not 
the force, — it is the law. All power resides in the free, untram- 
meled will. He who overlooks this, and blindly seeks for some- 
thing to ' move the mind to volition/ loses sight of the grand 
and distinctive peculiarity of man's nature, and brings it down 
to the dust, subjecting it to the laws of matter and bondage." — 
p. 216. 

"It is contended by Edwards, that it is just as absurd to say 
that a volition can come into existence without a cause, as it is 
that a world should do so. It is true that a world can not arise 
out of nothing, and come into existence itself ; and this is also 
equally true of a volition. But is the mind nothing ? Is the 
will nothing ? Is a free, intelligent, designing cause nothing ? 

"The philosophers of all ages have sought for the efficient 
cause of volition, but who has found it ? Is it in the will ? The 
necessitarian has shown the absurdities of this hypothesis. Is it in 
the power of motive ? This hypothesis is fraught with the same 
absurdities. Is it in the uncaused volition of the Deity ? The 
younger Edwards could do nothing with this hypothesis. In 
truth, the efficient cause of volition is nowhere." — p. 217. 
:j> ; "But as we appeal to consciousness, let us pay some little at- 
tention to its teaching. We find ourselves, then, possessed of a 
volition : we find our minds in a state of acting. This is all we 
discover by the light of consciousness. We see not the effectual 
power of any cause operating to produce it. What shall we con- 
clude, then ? Shall we conclude that there must be some cause to 
produce it ? This were not to study nature as the humble ser- 
vants and interpreters thereof, but to approach it in the attitude 
of dictators."— p. 227. 

"I would not say we are conscious of liberty, for that would 
not be correct ; but I will say that we are conscious of that which 
leads, to the conviction that we are free — that we have a power of 
contrary choice. As we are not compelled to act, so we know 
that we may act or not act, so we know that our actions are not 
necessitated, but may be put forth or withheld. This is liberty — 
this is a power of contrary choice. We are merely conscious of 
thought, of feeling, of volition ; and we are so made that we are 
compelled to believe that there is something which thinks, and 



Kfl The Human Will. 

Is, and wills. It is tlir.s, i y what has been called a fundamen- 
..w of belief, that we arrive at the knowledge of the existence 
a r minds, [n like manner, from the consciousness that wo 
do act or put forth volitions, we are Forced by a Fundamental law 
lief to yield to the conviction that we are free. This infer- 
ence as necessarily results from the observed phenomena of the 
mind, as [the belief of] the existence of the mind itself results 
from the same phenomena. And if the doctrine of the necessita- 
rian were true, that volition is a produced effect, we should never 
infer from it that we have a power of acting at all: we should 
simply infer that Ave are susceptible of passive impressions." — p. 
229. 



J: i ttely difficult to form any distinct idea of the author's 

:i of a free agent ; raid if free agency is what the author repre- 

it to be, it may be safely said that not one in a thousand 

knows whether he is a free agent or not, merely on the ground 

that lie could not know what free agency is. 

In the definition of a free agent given above, the author does 
not say he can act or not act, in view of circumstances both ex- 
ternal or internal — he says merely he can act, without being effi- 
ciently caused to do so. But he says again that, "As we are not 
•lied to act, so w r e know that w r e may act or not act, so w r e 
.' that our actions are not necessitated, but may be put forth 
or withheld." And yet the author says (p. 139), " No one ever 
that human volitions are without all necessity, according to 
use of that term ; and no one can hold it. No one can 
that there is an indissoluble connexion between the existence 
of a thing, and the certain and infallible knowledge of its ex- 
. There is no geometrical theorem or proposition whatever 
more capable of strict demonstration, than that God's certain 
of volitions of moral agents is inconsistent with such 
y of these events, as is without all necessity." 
author lays, "God foresees all human volitions, and that 
elf-contradictory and absurd to assert that a thing is fore- 
known, and yet that it may not come to pass, just as it is to assert 
that a thin;/ i.-, known to exist, and yet at t^m same time does not 
."' — (p. L33.) Now, when we put forth a volition which 
God foreknows we would put forth, and which He foreknew would 
not be withheld, and which it would be absurd and contradictory 



The Human Will. 53 

to say it miglit not be put forth, or might be withheld, it follows 
that if we know, when we put forth a volition, that we miglit not 
put it forth, we know what "is contradictory and absurd," and 
what is contrary to the truth; for "the volition," says the au- 
thor, " will certainly and infallibly come to pass." — (p. 138.) 
" Foreknowledge infers this kind of necessity, and is not contro- 
verted by any sane man that now lives, or that ever has lived/' 

This the author calls a logical necessity, and it is not the ne- 
cessity against which he contends. This necessity, he thinks, is 
compatible with free agency ; but the necessity which arises from 
the connexion between cause and effect, is what he thinks is utterly 
incompatible with free agency. He says, " Let the necessitarian 
show that God can not foresee future events, unless He has deter- 
mined to bring them to pass, or unless they are brought to pass 
by a chain of causes, ultimately connected with his own will, and 
he will prove "something to the purpose. But let him not talk 
so boastfully about demonstrations, while there is this exceed- 
ingly weak link in the chain of his argument." 

This link, I think, is of sufficient strength to bear the wdiole 
weight of the argument. The author says, "God foreknows all 
human volitions, and therefore they will most certainly and in- 
fallibly come to pass." Now these human volitions which will 
most certainly and infallibly come to pass, depend for their cer- 
tainty on the will of God, or depend not on the w r ill of God. If 
they depend on the will of God, then God determined to bring 
them into existence, either directly by his own agency, or by a 
chain of causes, or by a free agent, or by some other means, which 
should be effectual. But if human volitions take place infallibly, 
independent of the will of God, then many highly important 
events in God's universe take place in such a manner that God 
neither causes them to be, nor can He prevent them from being ; 
for whatever God knows will infallibly come to pass, can not be 
prevented either by God or man. Thus the Deity, according to 
this scheme, is impotent as to many of the most important events 
in the universe. He is a mere spectator of what depends not on 
his will for their existence, and of what his will can not prevent. 
Indeed, the author says, "If God should cease to know all future 
volitions, or if He had never known them, they would just as cer- 
tainly and infallibly come to pass, as if He had foreknown them 
from eternity." This is the necessity of Fate, not that which 



M The Human Will. 

m the infinite perfections of God. Edwards believed 
that the volitions of men were future before men were created, 

God determined that they should come to pass, and 
thai without thai determination they would not be future; or, in 
other words, would not come to pass, because there would have 
boon no cause to bring them to pass without the determination of 
God. For, to say that human volitions would as certainly and 
infallibly come to pass if God had never foreknown them as if 
Be had foreknown them from all eternity, is the same as saying 
human volitions would infallibly be the same that they are, whether 
there is a God or not. 

And to Bhow that he is not merely playing upon the words fu- 
ture volitions (the word future meaning that which will come to 
pass), the author adds: " By bringing in the prescience of the 
Deity, Ave do not really strengthen or add to the conclusion in 
favor of necessity/ 1 The difference is, that this reasoning lands 
us in the necessity of blind Fate, and not the necessity arising from 
the infinite perfections of God, which Edwards contends for. If 
the author should think with me, that this is a fair deduction from 
his scheme, he will abandon the scheme rather than adopt the con- 
clusion. 

But it may be demonstrated in a different manner — that what- 
ever God foreknew from all eternity He decreed, thus : Let us 
suppose, then, that God had his eye on a particular volition. 
ads would say, "As it is a fundamental truth, that no 
event can come to pass without a cause, the Deity would know 
that the volition in question would not come to pass without a 
cause, and that as there was then no cause but Himself, He could 
not but know that its future certainty implied in his foreknowl- 
edge depended on his determination to introduce an adequate cause 
to produce the volition thus known. " 

The author will admit that this reasoning is good when applied 
to every event but volitions; but his doctrine is, that "volition 
ie of such nature that it can not be caused/' He grants, however, 
that, the volition in question has a "ground and reason, without 
which it will not come to pass, and with which it will most cer- 
tainly and infallibly come to pass/' Now, as God determined to 
bring these grounds and reasons into existence, knowing that if 
He did the volition in question would infallibly take place, and 
that if He did not the volition would not take place, his determin- 



The Human Will. 55 

ing the ground and reason of the volition, was determining the 
volition itself. This is true even on the absurd supposition that 
these grounds and reasons are not the cause of the volition — 
or on the still more absurd supposition, that the volition has 
no cause. For when the Deity created man, and determined 
to hring into existence a "ground and reason" of a particu- 
lar volition, knowing that, if He did so, that particular volition 
would come into existence, and if He did not do so, that par- 
ticular volition would not come into existence — nothing could 
better describe the manner of God's determining that the volition 
itself should be brought into existence. 

It will not do to say, as the author does (229), "As we are 
not compelled to act, so we know that we may act or not act. 
This is liberty, — this is a power of contrary choice, " — unless 
the author were to go further, and say, God has created also a suf- 
ficient " ground and reason " for not putting forth the volition, at 
the same time that He created a sufficient ground and reason for 
putting it forth. Nor would this groundless supposition be suffi- 
cient ; for as the Deity's foreknowledge implies an infallible cer- 
tainty that the volition in question will be put forth, it is absurd 
to suppose at the same time it may not be put forth. Besides, it 
might be asked why one "ground and reason' ' should be more 
effectual than another. Nor would the author be at liberty to 
infer this power of " contrary choice," even by denying the fore- 
knowledge of God ; for by his doctrine of " logical necessity," the 
volition in question " will certainly and infallibly come to pass, 
whether it is foreknown or not ; and the foreknowledge can not 
make it more certain than it is without it." "It is just as much 
a contradiction in terms to say that what is future will [may] not 
come to pass, as to say what God foreknows will [may] never 
take place." 

Now, Edwards believes that the volitions of men would not 
come to pass without the decree of God ; and I think all consist- 
ent theists agree with him : but as the author believes they will 
come to pass, though the Deity did not decree them, nor foreknow, 
his system is bound up in an absolute and blind Fate, from which 
there is no escape but by abandoning the doctrine that future 
volitions are certain, independent of the decree of God. 

But what does the author mean by this power of " contrary 
choice ? " He can not mean that we have power not to put forth 



The Human Will. 
a volition, which will infallibly come to pass, and which it would 

I 31 I I 8V«n tO BHpp086 may not COme to pass. Nor can 

he moan thai of two contrary things proposed for our ohoioe, 

.-! make that one to appear most eligible which appears least 

eligible, or that we can make that one most worthy of choice 

which appears every way unworthy of choice. Even it' we had 

such power, which is impossible, it by no means appears how 

; .! accountability could be founded upon it. 

1: is, indeed, remarkable that the author doex not say we have 

the power of contrary choice, that we may act or not act, but 

that we know we may act or not act. And yet his whole 

ting goes to prove that when there is "sufficient ground 
and reason " for a volition, the volition Avill most infallibly come 
to pass : and it would be the height of absurdity to suppose that 
it may not come to pass. "To be free, however, it must come to 
pass without any producing cause." This is the great point with 
the author : the infallible certainty of the volition's coming to 
pass may be as absolute as you please, provided only that infalli- 
ble certainty does not arise from the connection which exists be- 
tween cause and effect. 

He says: "Let it be assumed that a volition is, properly 
speaking, an effect, and everything is conceded. On this vantage 
ground the scheme of Necessity may be erected, beyond the 

• ility of an overthrow. For if volition is an effect prop- 
erly -peaking, it is necessarily produced by its cause." — (p. 55.) 
And yet the author seems to shrink from the defence of this posi- 
tion, when he is pressed by Edward's objection, that it is just as 
absurd to say that a volition can come into existence without a 
cause, as it is that a world should do so. For the author, instead 

empting to answer the objection, says, "It is true that a 
world can not arise out of nothing, and come into existence itself; 
and this is equally true of a volition. But is the mind nothing? Is 

ill nothing ? Is a free, intelligent, designing cause nothing ? " 
I thor means by a " i'vee, intelligent, designing cause, " the 

of volition, he gives up the point to the necessitarian. If he 

Qot mean that, he makes no answer to the objection. Indeed, 
it is manifest that no satisfactory answer can be made to the objec- 
tion, for no reasoning can either increase or diminish the firmness of 
our belief that everything which begins to exist must have an 
adequate cause ; or, which amounts to the same thing, from noth- 



The Human Will. 57 

ing, nothing can arise. Nor is our belief in this principle in the 
least shaken by our ignorance of the cause of any event ; and if 
the author could show (as I think he has not been able to do) 
that our volitions are caused neither by our minds nor by motives, 
nor by their united power, he would not be any nearer convincing 
us that volitions have no cause, than when he began. 

In fact, the doctrine of Philosophical Necessity, as taught by 
Edwards, amounts just to this : Any imaginary future events, 
which have causes to produce them, will come to pass ; and any 
imaginary future events which have not causes to produce them, 
will not come to pass ; and God is the first designing cause of all 
other causes, and has thus complete control over the whole uni- 
verse, both of mind and matter. 

But let us see whether the cause of volition is really as in- 
scrutable as the author imagines. Let us see whether it is not 
quite as well understood as the cause of motions of the body called 
voluntary. The author has no doubt that volition is the cause of 
the voluntary motions of the body. Now, the manner in which 
the will operates, to produce the motion of the body, is entirely 
unknown ; and the only means we have of knowing that volition 
is the cause of the motion of the body is, that motions uniformly 
accompany volition : that is, with the volition there is voluntary 
motion, — without the volition there is not voluntary motion. 
And as we can repeat the experiment a thousand times, and always 
with the same result, our minds are so formed that we can not 
avoid believing that volition is at least Alink in the chain of 
causes, on which voluntary motion of the body depends, in such 
a manner that it would not take place without the volition, and 
will take place with the volition. 

At least, this conviction applies to all the voluntary motions to 
which we attend ; but as there are a thousand voluntary motions, 
as we call them, produced every day, of which we take no notice, 
we can only infer from analogy that these motions are also pro- 
duced by volitions, of which we are equally unconscious ; for the 
moment we turn our attention to any continued motion of the 
body, we become instantly conscious that the motion does not 
occur without the volition. If we ask the physiologist how these 
motions are produced, he will tell us the body is a machine so 
contrived, that by having the origin of the muscles in one bone 
and the insertion in another, when we will to bend a member of 



The Jluman Will. 

the body, the mind Bends ■ nervous fluid through the flexor 
les, which causes them to swell in thickness and contract in 
; : and this contract ion or shortening o\' the muscle causes 
the member to bend; ami the same operation is produced on the 
extensors when we will to Btradghten a member. Ask the natural 
philosopher what this nervous fluid is, or whether there is any 
which the mind Bends through the muscles, in volition, lie will 
tell you ho does not know ; but lie will show you by experiment 
that the magneto-electric fluid produces so powerful a contraction 
in the length of the flexor muscles of the fingers, that volition is 
not able to open the hand while under the operation. He will 
show you by experiment that the galvanic fluid produces, in the 
recently dead bodies of men, violent contortions of face, and great 
muscular motion in the arms and legs. He will show you a gal- 
vanic battery made by bringing in contact similar muscles of 
recently-killed animals, similar parts of the muscles touching dis- 
similar. He will show you that if one end of a wire be thrust 
into the brain of a living animal, and the other end into the hinder 
or lower part of the animal, an electric current will immediately 
paflS along the wire. He will show you the electric eel and the 
torpedo, which not only generate electricity, but discharge it in 
large quantities, at will, into surrounding bodies. At the same 
time he will tell you, if you infer from all these experiments that 
the human mind has the power, at will, to discharge through any 
particular muscle a quantity of electricity, that you infer what, in 
the present state of science, can not be proved, and that, if it could 
be proved, we might probably be as much in the dark as ever as 
to how the mind operates on the fluid, or how the fluid operates on 
the muscle. I have said this much merely to show how little we 
. of the operation of causes in producing a most familiar 
, the motion of the body ; and yet this want of knowledge 
not in the least weaken our most perfect belief that there 
IS a cause for this motion, whether we have discovered what it is 
or not. However, as we know that, in the normal state of the 
body, voluntary motion always takes place when we will it, and 
does not take place when we do not will it, and that we can not 
even try to move the body either without the will or contrary 
to the will, we have the highest reason to believe that volition 
is the cause of voluntary motion, in the sense that with the voli- 
tion the motion will take place, and that without it the motion 



The Human Will. 59 

will not take place. Moreover, we have the same reason to believe 
that we have the power to move the body with the volition, and 
no power to move the body without the volition. Thus it appears 
that the distinction between physical and moral power, which 
some authors make, is without foundation — there is no physical 
power without moral ; we can not do anything either without our 
will or contrary to our will. I do not speak of our thoughts, 
desires, and sensations, which we are said rather to have than to 
do — though subsequent thoughts, desires and sensations are often 
remotely dependent for their existences on previous volitions ; and 
yet it is not inconsistent with this, as will be shown presently, 
that volitions depend directly, for their existence, on thoughts, 
beliefs, and desires combined. God has so arranged that each 
effect shall be itself the cause of a subsequent event. Nothing is 
useless in his universe — everything tends towards perfection. 
God has not yet done creating — so far as man is concerned, his 
creation is just begun, not merely as to those which are yet to be 
born, but as to those which have been born. When a child is 
born into the world, his creation is just commenced, and mani- 
festly proceeds but a short distance during threescore and ten 
years. Nor is this anomalous : God takes immense periods to 
create every thing of great value, and what is of greater value than 
a human soul ? 

At the very commencement of man's creation, his intellectual 
being appears almost an entire negation — no dawn of reason, no 
volition ; the first mental phenomenon exhibited is pain, from 
want. As yet, not even a desire for food is formed ; for a desire 
for anything can not be formed until there is intellect to think that 
the pain of want may be removed by the thing desired. In the 
course of a few months, however, we find reason begin to dawn ; 
and with the aid of memory, and repeated experience, the child 
evidently draws the deduction, that the pain of want is relieved by 
the mother's breast. This is probably one of the first deductions 
of reason that an infant draws. It is not at all probable, that the 
frequent returns of pain from want, and the frequent reliefs from 
that pain, would be recollected and associated together in such a 
manner as to enable the infant to draw the deduction on the recur- 
rence of the pain, that the pain might be removed, before he 
would associate his relief from pain and his mother's breast 
together. If he makes the former association first, he will then 



80 The Human Will. 

i a desire on the recurrence of fche pain, merely to be 
rom the pain : bnl this desire can not result m volition: lor 

the infant does not know thai any means exist io relieve 

him from the pain, and there can be no volition until the mind is 
created as to have Borne object in view, accompanied with a 

belief that that object ean be obtained liy volition. Indeed, a 

volition is formed by the mind from a desire for something, and a 

that the thing desired may be obtained by putting forth the vo- 

Bxperiments may be contrived and performed a thousand 

ways to tesl the truth o( this assertion. 

Suppose, for instance, we have not been able to obtain food for 
isiderable time, and our desire for food becomes very strong ; 
foo 1 is now presented for our acceptance, and there is nothing to 
hinder us from gratifying our desire but the will : if the experi- 
ment Bhonld lie tried ten thousand times, it would result every 
time the -am" way, in a formation of volition to take the food 
and eat. If the food, however, should be presented to us when 
It a strong aversion to eating, which, for the sake of uni- 
formity of expression, may be called a desire not to eat, then 
would the result be just as uniform as before, a will not to eat : 
it being understood in both cases, that no evil is apprehended by 
following the desires. 

To prove that the volition does not result from the simple de- 
sire; wi tli out the belief that the desire may be gratified by the 
volition, the experiment may be tried in various instances ; and 
it will always be found, however strong the desire is, no volition 
will be formed while the mind believes that the desire can not be 
gratified. 

I example: A criminal condemned to death may desire to 

run oh* from prison, but while he is satisfied that the walls of his 

can not he hroken, and that there is no possibility of 

. the volition to run off will not be formed ; but let his 

chain- be thrown off, and the prison door opened, in such a man- 

te a belief that he may escape, the volition will be 

tttly formed. Open the prison door, however, to a prisoner 

who desi bo stay in prison, and his belief that he may escape 

will nor be sufficient to induce the mind to form the volition to go 

out. Offer an inducement to the prisoner sufficient to create a de- 

fche prison, and then the mind will instantly form 

the volition. By varying these experiments indefinitely any one 






The Human Will. 61 

may easily satisfy himself that when the desire, and the belief that 
there is nothing to hinder the gratification of the desire, are Loth 
present in the mind, then the volition is formed, hut that the voli- 
tion is not formed when either the desire or belief is wanting. 

Thus it clearly appears, that we have the same reason for be- 
lieving that a desire, and belief that the desire may be gratified, 
are the cause of the mind's forming a volition, in the sense that 
with the desire and belief the volition will be formed, and without 
the desire and belief the volition will not be formed, that we have 
to believe that volition is the cause of voluntary motion of the 
body. It must be recollected, however, that it is the mind which 
forms the volition — the same mind which has the desire and be- 
lief. 

As we drew the conclusion before, that we have no power to 
produce motion in the body, if we have not the will, or do not 
make the volition, so now we may draw the conclusion that 
we have no power to form a volition, if we have not the desire, 
and the belief that the thing desired may be done. 

This conclusion will be confirmed by taking notice of what 
passes in our mind when two desires exist in it, in such a manner 
that they both can not be gratified. Suppose, for instance, that 
we learn at the same moment, that it is highly important to our 
interests to attend to some business in the north, and, also, that a 
beloved child is taken dangerously ill in the south. Our pecu- 
niary interests lead us one way, our affection for our child the 
other. If one of these desires is felt to be much stronger than 
the other, there will be no hesitation in forming a volition accord- 
ing with the strongest desire ; but, if the mind can perceive no 
difference in the strength of the desires, which is a case rarely if 
ever occurring, then the mind will not choose one in preference to 
the other, but it will choose one in preference to neither. 

If every part of infinite space is identically like every other 
part, we can not conceive that God, with his infinite intelligence, 
could make any choice of one part in preference of another to 
place the universe in, when He created it ; He only chose one part 
in preference to none : for, when the mind perceives no difference 
between two things, it can not decide that one is better or prefer- 
able to another. Examples of this kind may be multiplied at 
pleasure, and we will always find that the volition will correspond 
with the strongest desire, of which consciousness alone is judge. 



■ Human Will. 

In our present imperfect state (and by imperfect state I (Dean 

our incomplete creation), it frequently happens, (hat our desires 

ir passions 01 appetites are opposed to our desires to 

or conscience or moral sense. Our moral sense is created 

much later than our appetites, and in the incipient stage of our 

«Oe they rule the will almost entirely. (\oi\ has contrived it 

bo that die moral sense increases in strength faster than our pas- 
sions and appetites, and must finally get the complete ascendency ; 
if not in this world, certainly in the next, as certainly as God is 
infinitely wise ami good. We see, even in this world, that the 
sexual sense is not created until the moral sense is considerably 
advanced in its creation — a wise and beneficent arrangement; for 
the sexual sense without the moral sense would lead to many- 
evils. As it i>. the moral sense is not always able to restrain its 
gratification within the bounds of right reason. 

( >nfl of the chief offices of the moral sense is, by the pleasure 
winch its approbation affords, and by the pain which its disappro- 
bation produces, to induce us to gratify our passions and appetites, 
at the same time to increase, if possible, the happiness, but 
never to diminish the comfort and well-being of others. One of 
the nuans (iod has taken to effect his purpose of increasing its 
. i< to cause us always, on a review of our conduct, to feel 
gratified when our moral sense has prevailed over a passion or 
ite, which otherwise would have been indulged at the expense 
of others' comfort, and to feel mortified and ashamed when the 
moral sense was overcome. This experience certainly tends to 
gthen the moral sense, and give it more power for victory in 
future. 

birth, there being no use for the moral sense, it is not yet 
indeed, it can not begin to exist before the dawn of rea- 
son, for it is the* reason applied to the moral conduct, accompa- 
nied with a feeling of approbation or disapprobation. "By the 
contrivance of Gfod, even our senses and appetites are so con- 
ed for our happiness, that what they immediately make 
inerally on other accounts also useful, either to our- 
bo mankind/'* Tins is peculiarly the case with the 
mora. And it, is; so far superior to all our other senses in 

pect, thai wh&i it approves we call right, and what it dis- 



Etatche8<m'fl Philosophy. 



The Human Will. 63 

approves we call wrong. The original meaning of the word right 
is straight, and of wrong, crooked or twisted. Now, when we 
examine the nature of those actions which the moral sense ap- 
proves, they are found generally to lead straight to happiness* 
without producing misery either to ourselves or others ; whilst 
those actions which the moral .sense disapproves, generally lead to 
nnhappiness both of ourselves and others, and in this crooked way 
lead to reformation and happiness. 

If our moral sense sometimes approves of actions leading to 
nnhappiness, both of ourselves and others, this arises, no doubt, 
from its imperfection — God not yet having completed its creation. 
But when its creation shall be completed, in the next life, it is 
highly probable that its dictates will universally lead straight to 
happiness. It is, also, highly probable, that the desire to gratify 
the moral sense, when it shall have become perfect — that is, made 
complete, or its creation finished — will be so strong as to over- 
come all opposing desires, if any then should exist ; and if so, it 
will then be impossible to will anything wrong. There will be 
no desire to will contrary to the moral sense, and where all the 
desire is on one side, and no evil apprehended from its gratifica- 
tion, the will infallibly agrees with the desire. If it did not, as 
much inconvenience would be experienced as if the motions of the 
body did not correspond with the will. 

I wish it always to be understood when I speak of all the de- 
sires, I mean to include not merely the desire of gratifying the 
appetites and passions, and external senses, but also especially 
the desire of gratifying that internal sense, called the moral sense 
or conscience. 

The voluntary motions of the body, therefore, follow the voli- 
tions, and the volitions follow the desires, when they are accom- 
panied with a belief that the desire may be gratified without evil 
apprehended from the gratification. The desires, from which vo- 
litions originate, are produced by the presentation to the external 
or internal senses of certain objects which we believe will increase 
our pleasure or diminish our pain. Indeed, we can not conceive 
it possible that desires should not arise in the mind of such a be- 
ing as man, endowed with sensitivity and reason, and surrounded 
with objects some capable of producing happiness, and some 
misery. The beauty of the system is, that God has so arranged 
it, that even in our present imperfect, unfinished state of creation 



M Human Will. 

which are desirable for their own sakes, and to which 

fced, do! from any view to their being useful in future 

otherSj nevertheless, generally contribute to the 

all : and when the creation of the moral sense shall be 

completed, it is probable that this will be universally the case. 

1 inly, the more perfect our moral Bense becomes in this 

world, the less do we choose things hurtful to ourselves and 

. as means to promote our own happiness. 

Aj - nsitive beings, we are necessarily fond 6f pleasure and 

pain ; consequently, those things which appear capable 

of producing pleasure cause desire, and those tilings winch appear 

capable of producing pain cause aversion ; for our beliefs always 

spond to the appearances of things, or, in other words, to 

what appears to be the evidence of their truth. Whenever there is 

sufficient evidence, belief follows, and whenever there is not suffi- 

p ■. belief does not follow. We can not determine or 

will to believe without evidence, or not to believe with evidence ; 

and the evidence itself is just what the nature of the objects and 

the state or constitution of our mind when the object is presented, 

necessarily produce. 

Now, all theists believe that the nature of objects to produce 
jure or pain, and the constitution of the mind to be so ef- 
. depend for their existence on the will of God ; and if so, 
Th*n all the subsequent links of the chain of causes and effects re- 
sulting in human conduct depend, likewise, on God's will. 
f the chain of cause and effect, beginning with Inl- 
and going upwards, are : Human conduct proceeds 
from volition; volition, from desire, with its accompanying belief 
that the desire may be gratified without evil ; desire, from a belief 
thai the object will increase pleasure or diminish pain ; belief , from 
the evidence before the mind that the object is desirable ; the desira- 
Us$tbss of the object, from the will of God ; the will of God, from 
to do good; Ids desire to do good, from his infinite wis- 
dom and goodness/ and his infinite wisdom and goodness are the 
cause of oil f irate things, being themselves uncaused and un- 
creaUMe, 

I links of the chain of cause and effect down- 

.viih the conduct of men, we shall find a beau- 
tiful and system, which tends in all its parts to the 
perfection of the reason, the moral sense, and the happiness of 



The Human Will. 65 

men. Volition produce* conduct, or action of mind or body; con- 
duct produces pleasure or pain ; pleasure or pain, especially pain, 
produces consideration as to its cause ; consideration products belief 
according to the evidence ; belief produces new desire different ft 
the former y according to the change of belief produced by the preced- 
ing experience. In fact, each moral ad becomes, without any inten- 
tion on our part, an experiment by which we find out, more and 
more, the causes of happiness and the causes of misery ; and, of 
course, more and more of the Jaws of morals. For, indeed, (dl 
science, both of physics and morals, both of matter and mind, consists 
in a knoivledge of phenomena, and of the relation that the pjhenornena 
have to one another as to uniformity of sequences. 

The knowledge of the uniformity of sequences, which is some 
times called the relation of cause and effect, is of the highest im- 
portance ; it is the art of manufacturing happiness, Loth to oursel 
and others, and avoiding misery. 

Now, that which is calculated to fill us with the highest vene- 
ration and love for the great First Cause is, that He has so 
contrived, that every one, as soon as he has learned the ait, 
will voluntarily practice it from that time forth forever; for our 
desire of happiness and aversion to misery are as durable as our 
existence. But what is calculated to raise our veneration, if pos- 
sible, still higher, is, that God has introduced us into the great 
school of his universe, where He employs every action which we 
perform, and every event which comes within our knowledge, 
to teach us the relation of cause and effect, which is the great cle- 
ment of the art of manufacturing happiness, pre has caused us 
to believe with a confidence that can neither be increased nor di- 
minished by any arguments, for the belief is instinctive and fun- 
damental, that every event must have a cause, and that with the 
cause it will infallibly take place, and without the cause it infal- 
libly will not take place. He lias arranged these causes -and 
effects, so that the one follows the other with perfect uniformity, 
both in the physical and moral world, for the purpose of enabling 
us to learn what are the causes, and what the effects. Without 
this uniformity, we could learn nothing. Indeed, if tilings took 
place contingently, there would be nothing to learn. 

Nor need we fear that this constitution <j( things will change, 
any more than that the perfections o\^ God himself will change. 
He has given us memory to store up facts or phenomena which 
5 



The Human Will. 

>•. lit* li.is given us reason, and is increasing 
lay to im . and 1 [e has made tin* 

\ i ta€ of this reason, and this discovery of truth, delightful for 
.\n Bake, even when we think not of the utility thai will reb- 
uilt from increase of wisdom in future. 

11 ■• has surrounded us with our follows, and placed them ai such 
i poii iew, thai they doted many of our vices or defects 

which escape our own observation. He has inspired them with 
an instinctive desire to express the disapprobation of their moral 
iu the form o( blame, without being al all conscious, in 
many Instanced, t hat God uses this expression of disapprobation 
as means of advancing our creation so far as to remove the defect. 
Nor are they aware that God uses every feeling of moral approba- 
tion and disapprobation which they experience, whether it relates 
to their own conduct or to the conduct of others, as a means of 
ring more perfect their own moral sense; for all our senses, 
nal and internal, are improved by moderate use, nor can we 
be happy in their entire inactivity. 

God has caused us to ^d a high value on the good opinion of 
our fellows, especially on the approbation of their moral sense. 
When we discover by their expression of blame, that certain con- 
duct of ours has not their approbation, a powerful desire springs 
ap, corresponding to the high estimation we have of the value of 
»od, to try and regain their favor by abstaining from like con- 
duct in future. It is thus God uses his own divine laws of uni- 
formity in bis universe, the moral sense of our fellows, nay, even 
the j of our own minds, to aid Jlim in the completion of 

id design, to carry on the work of creating our soul to 
compl stion, when our wisdom and goodness will be without defect, 
main thenceforward and forever the source of moral conduct 
unblameable, and happiness without alloy. 

Ji this is a correct exposition of the relation which mental 

phenomena bear to each other, it follows that all the volitions, 

desiresi and beliefs which exist, have their causes ; and from the 

le connection which God has established between cause 

phenomena must necessarily exist, and those im- 

iy volition-, de-ires and beliefs, which have no cause, must 

[f events can only arise from causes, and 

the connection be( ween the causes and the events can not be broken, 

or, in Other words, if with \\\c causes the events invariably occur, 



The Human Will. 67 

and without the causes they do invariably not occur, then the doc- 
trine of Philosophical Necessity is true. 



However clear and satisfactory the system of Philosophical 
Necessity appears to me, I was glad to have an opportunity of 
examining the views and arguments of an acute mind, in opposi- 
tion to Edwards, and in favor of contingency as the only ground 
on which liberty and moral agency can be established. 

Henry P. Tappan, in a late work on the " Doctrine of the Will 
determined by an Appeal to Consciousness/ ' maintains, in oppo- 
sition to the doctrine of necessity, and the fixed connection between 
cause and effect, that " necessity, real and absolute, does not 
belong to cause (p. 276) ; all cause will be found to resolve itself 
into will, and will is free." That is, when the mind or will of 
God or man puts forth a volition, the cause of that volition has 
no more connection with the volition put forth, than it has with 
hundreds of other imaginable volitions, or with the withholding 
that volition, and not putting it forth at all. He maintains that 
it is of the very nature or essence of Will to have the power of 
putting forth volitions in any direction, not merely according to 
our pleasure, but contrary to both the dictates of reason and the 
desires of the heart. "These convictions and these impulses lie 
in other parts of my being, in my reason and my sensitivity, and 
do not go to make up a volition, nor do they go in themselves to 
prevent a volition. I feel within me that I can will against all 
motives, presented whether by the reason or sensitivity. Let the 
motives be increased to ever such a degree, I feel that I have 
power still to will in opposition to these. To will, to put forth 
the causative nisus, is a simple act, which J can always do ; it is 
created solely by myself, and capable of being in any given 
direction, notwithstanding any motives whatever, for or against." 
— p. 90. 

" In forming our predeterminations, or purposes, and in the 
causative nisus, or volition, there is no resistance overcome, there 
is no opposing force whatever. I have freedom here as an attri- 
bute most unique, both because I purpose and will in entire con- 
tingency, and because there is no antagonistic power, that, to my 
consciousness, impedes or overcomes me in purposing and willing. 
The motives of action found in reason and passion have no 



Human Will. 

to physical forces, as plainly appears from (his 

one tart, thai where a resistance exists to a physical force, to a 

o likely to overcome the physical force, and to produce phe- 

i the direction of the antagonistic power, we can conceive 

h an augmentation of the physical force as shall finally 

overcome the antagonistic power. But will, on the contrary, ads 

with the Bame effect when it determines in opposition to infinite 

res properly and intrinsically considered, as when it deter- 

- in opposition to slight motives.''' — p. S ( ,). 

•• When the mind chooses simply in relation to the reason, 
should we ask why it chooses thus, the only legitimate answer 
is, thai it thus chooses. When the mind chooses simply in rela- 
tion I jensitivity, should we ask why it chooses thus, the 
<-nly legitimate answer is, thai it thus chooses." [And when 
tli- mind chooses contrary to all motives, let the motives be in- 
I ;<> ever Buch a degree, should it be asked why it thus 

- j, the only legitimate answer is, that it tints chooses.] 
■ 1 other words, the choice is a primary fact, and has no ('act 

ore by which it is to be explained." — p. 228. 
"It i-. then, this self-conscious power of determining or not 
mining, of causing or not causing — this contingent power — 
this power all-sufficient to move itself and put forth the causative 
nisuSy or withhold the causative nisus — which makes up the idea 
edom. M — j'. '><>. 
•• I utingoncy and necessity are opposite ideas and negate each 
is an idea opposed to necessity, multitudes are 
neously to aver. Let us see whether the conscious- 
Ognizefi this idea, and is able to define it intelligibly to 
well as to find subjects to which it may be legitimately 
applied. ^ 

"C atingency is that which is, or may be, but which might 
l, or might, be different from what it is. We plainly 
idea. I appeal to every man's consciousness. This 
e us i , hut it is conceivable that it might not 
j. or that it might he different from what it is. In rela- 
tion to the will of God, He might have prevented it. In rcla- 

to the will of the author, he might not have written it, or 
might have written a different hook, or might have destroyed it 

after it was written. lint, we can form no such conception of 

2-{-2=4. We can form no such conception of the being of God, 



The Human Will. 69 

nor of the existence of time and space, What is true of this 
hook, is true of every production of human ari and power. Now- 
all human ail ami power run back ultimately to human volition- : 
the contingency of all the sequents of human volitions must, there- 
fore, he referred to the contingency of the volitions them 
If the sequents of the volitions, which appear to us contingent* 
are really so, then i he volitions must be contingent likewise ; for 
the necessity of the volitions wonhl necessitate all the sequel 
connected with them by a fixed law. Now what is the testimony 
of every man's consciousness respecting the volitions ? Does it 
sustain the logical inference above given ? Are volitions necessary 
or contingent? It does not appear to me difficult to answer npon 
this point. If consciousness is clear and decisive npon any ques- 
tion of psychology, it certainly is clear and decisive here. Let 
us take any volition whatever ; let us multiply and vary the ex- 
amples indefinitely, and the result is clearly the same. 

" I make an effort or volition to attend to this book, or to this 
conversation, or to this subject of thought, and in every act of 
attention, I have this conviction : I might not attend, or I might 
attend to something else. Again, I make a volition to raise my 
arm, to move my foot, to get up and walk, to sit down, or to 
make any muscular movement whatever ; and in all these volitions 
I have this conviction : I might forbear to make the volition, or I 
might make a different volition. I have no consciousness of my 
power antecedent to my own causality, compelling or necessitating 
that causality in any particular direction. I appear to myself the 
sole cause of my .volitions, and I appear to myself a cause acting 
contingently. In any given case of causality, I can not but think 
that I can forbear to do what I am doing, or can exercise my 
causality in a way entirely different. 

" What my consciousness thus testifies respecting myself, I 
can net but apply to the Deity likewise. If I have this power to 
do or not to do, He, as the first infinite mind, must surely have 
this power. Hence, as I actually do conceive of creation as con- 
tingent — that is, I conceive that it might not be, or it might be 
different from what it is, or it might cease to he — so here likewise, 
as in the case of human causality, 1 refer the contingency of all 
creation, and of all its changes, to the contingency of the divine 
volitions. 

"When (Jod said, 'Let there be light,' it was positively neces- 



10 Human Will. 

that light shouKl appear necessary relatively to his infinite 
;it wo dearly conoeive that God was under no necessity 
o( putting forth t In* volition or creative nisu* represented by the 
phrase, 'Let there be light. 1 We may not deny Him an attri- 
bute which wo possess ourselves. A. necessitated Creator could 

reate tree agents. A dependent and finite mind can tot 

1 the measure of the first and infinite. 
"So decisive are our conceptions on this subject, that the 
moment we suppose mind as cause to be necessitated in the exer- 

f its causality, we seem to destroy mind itself, and to bring 
it down to the mere condition of physical causes. Physical 
causes can not but act under their appropriate circumstances, and 
can not but act uniformly. Fire must burn when thrown amidst 
Combustibles. The various elementary substances of chemistry 
must unit.' according to their definite proportions — a stone thrown 
into the air must fall to the ground. Here is no choice on the part 
of the physical cause. But with ourselves, and with all beings like 
parselves, we know it is quite different. We choose the direction 
of our causality, and we can vary it every moment. We do not 

i ourselves, I must lift this arm; I must move this foot ; ] 
must take hold of this chair ; I must read this book, — but we say, 
I can do this or not, just as I please. ' And wdien we use this lan- 
guage, we do not mean that if we make the effort or volition it 
will be done — e. g. y if I please or will to move my aim, my arm 
will move ; but we mean that the effort or volition itself is entire- 
ly within our power [even in opposition to all our desires or mo- 

. let the motive^ be increased to ever such a degree, even to 
infinity (p. 89) ; lor as the strong convictions of our reason, and 

strong impulses or repugnances of our sensitivity, lie — not in 
the will, but — in other parts of our being, in forming our causative 
or volition, there is no resistance overcome, no opposing 
■i |. We can mate \\\'<> volition or forbear to make 
it. and in either case there is plainly no consciousness of compul- 
sion OX necessity. Now how absurd it would be to say of lire 

when placed amid combustibles, it can burn or not burn [as it 

-j. or of a .-.tone thrown dp into the air, it can fall or not 
fall [as it pleases]. The difference between ourselves as causey 

and phyg] - U only made out in this way, and in this way 

ifl plainly made out, viz. : physical causes are necessitated causes — 
we are contingent causes." — pp. 00, 07, 89, 90. 



The Human Will. 71 

Many other passages of similar import might be selected from 
the work, but these are sufficient (<> ^h<»w what the author belies 
to be the only foundation of human and divine freedom — the 

contingency of volitions. The author agrees with th< Pa- 

rian, that all phenomena in the physical world arise necessarily 
from their causes, in consequence of an inseparable connexion es- 
tablished by God himself between the causes and the phenomena 
which they produce. 

So, if 1 understand the author aright, be admits that all mental 
phenomena, with the exeeption of volition, are necessary : such 
as pleasurable and painful feelings, desires and aversions, hopes 
and fears, joys and sorrows, approbation and disapprobation, 
certainty and doubt. I perhaps ought to have mentioned error, 
as well as volition, as not belonging to necessity, for he says 
(p. 277), " Error is not necessary. It is not a necessary develop- 
ment of reason. It is^ not amotion of the sensitivity arising 
necessarily from its constitution.* All error belongs primarily to 
the element of freedom, and is sojnehow connected with the deter- 
minations of the will." 

But this is a mere insulated assertion ; and as from the manner 
of its enunciation it appears that the author felt himself altogether 
incompetent to show how it is possible for an ignorant being to 
avoid all error, I do not consider this as one of the deliberate 
opinions of the author. It probably occurred to his mind that 
erroneous opinions are sometimes censurable ; and if so, according 
to his view of responsibility, praise and blame, these erroneous 
opinions could not be altogether unavoidable. 

Let us examine what ground the author has for believing that 
creation and all its changes are contingent, in the sense of his 
definition of contingent — that whatever event is, might not have 
been, or might be different from what it is. 

As to the possibility of a thing's being different from what it 
is, it is a contradiction in terms, and plainly absurd : a thing can 
not be different from itself — if it is different, it is another thing. 
How would it sound to say, Alexander the Great might have been 
very different from what he was, if he had been born of a differ- 
ent mother. If this is contingency, it neither can exist nor he 
conceived of. 

The other part of the definition is not self-contradictory. Let 
us examine what it means : "An event is, but might not have 



The Human 117//. 

latter olauae is always use. I. in common parlance, 
; and, of course, another verb is either expressed or 
ii'n its adjunct //', or something equivalent. In 
:i( instance, the Bense would be completed thus: An 
b it might not have been, if proper means had been used 
I it. This is the manner in which the author uses it, in 
quoted above. He says a booh is, but if might not 
r in relation to the will of God, He might have pre- 
A.gain, it might not have been ; for in relation bo the 
of the author, he might not have written it. Now, (his is 
[uivalent to saying, it might not hfive been, if G-od had 
i prevent it ; it might not have been, if the author 
had d< >t to write it. On the supposition, however, that 

rmined to prevent it, it would be proper to say not 
ly thai tfa might not be, but that the book would infal- 

libly not be. So. on the supposition that the author had not 
i write the boolc,« it would he proper to say not 
that the book might not have been, but that the book 
would infallibly not be. Now, this is precisely what the Necessi- 
tarian iin ids by the term necessity, the sure and certain 
d that <Jod has established between the antecedent called 
. and the consequent called effect. It appears, then, that by 
>wn account, in an example brought forward by him- 
o illustrate and explain contingency, the doctrine of Neces- 
sity is I — at least as far as the example itself extends. 
The author goes on to observe, "What is true of this book is 
production of human art and power ; but these pro- 
as being the sequents of volitions, if the sequents are con- 
y appear to be, then the volitions must be contingent 
: and he rails upon consciousness, which is the only evi- 
ing forward, to prove that whenever he makes a voli- 
tion I hi arm, to move his foot, to get up or sit down, or 
cular movement whatever, he has this conviction 
[from -■-], that he might forbear to make the volition,' 
or might make a different volition." 

hown by writers on the subject, thai it is not the 

to decide the truth or falsehood of such 

prop j " I can withhold any volition I make," any more 

than it is the office of the ear to decide what is the color of a rose. 

to ■ ide nil such questions, and it is the 



The Human Will. 73 

office of consciousness to decide what mental phenomena actually 
occur — such us thoughts, sensations, desires, and volitions — 

and of the existence of these we have no evidence but that of con- 
sciousness. 

Besides, it is impossible for onr consciousness to be exer< 
every time we make a volition to produce any muscular motion 
whatever, in deciding thai ire could withhold the volition, or 
make a different volition, for this reason alone : that in at le 
ninety -nine out of one hundred of these volitions, no thought 
enters the mind, either of withholding the volition or making an- 
other. 

Now, it is manifest that we are not conscious of anything that 
does not enter the mind, even in thought ; and also, that we can 
not make a volition which it does not enter our mind to make ; 
nor can we have a " conviction " arising from any source, that at 
the time of making a volition we might withhold it, if the thought 
of withholding it does not enter our mind. Besides, when the 
thought of withholding the volition does enter the mind, which 
only occurs when there are motives on both sides, it is found, 
whenever consciousness is consulted, that it decides that motive 
to be the strongest according to which the volition is actually 
made. Consciousness, then, furnishes no ground to believe in the 
contingency of volitions ; let us examine further what reason says 
on the subject ; and for the sake of distinctness, we will take a 
particular volition — that, for example, of Peter's volition to deny 
his master. Previous to the event, these two propositions or as- 
sertions may be made concerning it : Peter will make the volition 
to deny his master ; Peter will not make the volition to deny his 
master. One of these assertions, made even a million of years 
before the event, is true — the other is false. If we supple the 
first to be true, "Peter will put forth the volition," then von 
may suppose Peter's power to withhold volitions, or to make vo- 
litions of any kind, as great as you please — he can not prevent 
that volition from coming to pass which will come to pass. Nay, 
ytfu may call in the infinite power of God ; God himself can not 
even will to prevent that from coming to pass which He knows 
will come to pass. Nor does this assertion infringe in the slight- 
est degree on his infinite power; for, according to the doctrine of 
Necessity, the truth of the assertion, " Peter will make a volition 
to deny his master," depended on the will of God ; and it is not 



:\ r Human Will. 

inconsistent with infinite power to say that God can not will nm- 

I ngwhoc - the Future as plain an t lu» present, it is the 

•am* contradiction to Bay of a volition, it may be put forth, and 
it may not be put forth, as to say (^ the present, concerning a 

volition, it is put forth, and it is not put forth. So there is the 

earns contradiction in Baying, before the event, Peter'* power may 

carted in such a manner as to put forth the volition to deny 

hi > master ; and Peter's power may be exerted in such a manner 

put forth tin 4 volition to deny his master [using the 

may unconditionally] ; as it would be to say, after the event, 

's power has been exerted in such a manner that lie has put 

forth the volition to deny his master; and Peter's power has been 

1 in Bueh a manner that he has not put forth the volition to 

deny his master. 

history of the future is just as certain as if it w r ere written 
by the finger of God, including all human volitions; and it is 
manifestly impossible for any man ever to exert his power so as 
to prevent any volition from being put forth which God knows 
belongs to this history. This argument of Edwards, the author 
has not attempted to answer, except by merely saying (page 249), 
if this argument be true, "A system of absolute fatalism pre- 
vail-/' [f the author had said, "Universal necessity, arising out 
of the infinite necessary perfections of God," he would have said 
exactly what Edwards brought forward the argument to prove; 
but the word fatalism (which seems to have been introduced here 
for the purpose of throwing odium on an argument which he 
could not refute, and which I think can not be refuted) conveys 
the idea of Universal Necessity, independent of the will and per- 
il- of &od. The system of Edwards is as different from this 
sism ifi from atheism. 
\\ ifl hut jnstioa, however, to the author to state, and show by 
quotations, that so great is the power of truth, and so clearly did 
its if on this point, that when he forgot for a moment 
Loctrine of contingency, he stated, with a clearness and 
elled by Edwards himself, some of the strongest 
feature! and foundation-principles of Universal Necessity, origi- 

ta ill- infinite perfections of God; and embracing not 
Jy all the good actions of men, but all the evil, in such infal- 
lible certainty and inevitability that God himself can not prevent 



The Human Will. 75 

them, being incidental to a .system which must be the best, since it 
was projected by infinite wisdom, and which, as being the beftt, 
must have been selected by Him as the all- wise and all-powerful. 

But when he had the doctrine of contingency full in view, he 
referred "the contingency of all creation, and of all its changes, 
to the contingency of the divine volitions." Instead of saying, 
then, that the Deity must have selected the system that appears to 
Him best, he says we may not deny the Deity an attribute which 
we possess ourselves : the power of willing or not willing to creal<* 
the present universe, or to create an entirely different one ; and 
that, too, contrary to all motives furnished by the reason and 
sensitivity. 

When God put forth the volition to create this glorious and 
beautiful universe, filled with benign contrivances to create and 
continually increase our happiness, giving us bodies furnished 
with senses fitted to derive pleasure from all surrounding objects, 
and souls filled to overflowing with delight, in contemplating the 
perfections of the glorious Creator, He might have put forth a 
volition to place us in a universe where every sensation would be 
a pain, and every thought of its Creator a horror. Or, instead of 
creating within us a moral sense, approving of all kindness, jus- 
tice, and veracity, as He has done, and also contriving it so that 
our mistakes should work out their own correction, He might 
have willed that our moral sense should approve of all cruelty, in- 
justice and falsehood, and contrived it so that error should perpe- 
tuate itself forever. 

The possibility of such volitions as these being made by the 
Deity, instead of those which He has actually made, is necessarily 
implied in his free agency. A free agent does not say of himself, 
I must do this, I must do that, but I can do this or not, as 1 
please ; nay, even contrary to my desire, however strong that de- 
sire may be, and contrary to the dictates of my moral sense and 
desire both. For example : I come into a room where I find my 
dearest friends assembled — my mother and sisters, and a young 
lady to whom I am ardently attached : my moral sense revolts at 
the thought of treating any of them with rudeness, indelicacy, 
and insult ; I have the strongest desire to retain their love and re- 
spect ; I put forth a volition to spit on one, to slap another in the 
face, pull another's nose, and treat my intended bride with the most 



i Buma* mil. 

shameful rudeness and indelicacy, causing ai the same time the most 
- in niv "w n breast, 
•• 1 appeal to consciousness h bether we do not conceive of the pos- 
sibility, and tlu* actual power, to do acts which disgust our moral 
- : and do we not conceive of this at the very moment we feel 
and in the very face of it ? " — p. 195, 
•* It is this Belf-conscious power of determining or not deter- 
mine ausing or not causing, this contingent power — this 
r all-sufficient to move itself and put forth the causative 
j, or to withhold the causative oisus, — which makes up the 
•ui." — p. 91 . 
Whilst the author's mind is filled with his motive of universal 
contingency, this is the manner in which he speaks of the free 
f oi God and man ; and apparently aware that reason will 
; him no assistance, he calls upon consciousness to testify to 
the truth of his assertions. Consciousness declares she knows 
the matter ; she only knows there are desires and vo- 
lition-, and thoughts and feelings ; whether they even belong to a 
2 which desires, and wills, and thinks, and feels, or not, she 
not know. Memory, however, volunteers her testimony, 
that desire always precedes volition, and reason as Amicus Curiae 
the universal law to he that where one event follows an- 
other uniformly, the uniformity is not contingent, but designed. 
when the author forgets for a time his doctrine of universal 
Iflgency, and speaks about the perfections of God and the 
origin of evil, oven Edwards himself would be pleased to listen. 
s : " When God created free agents, He, as om- 
iit, must have known all the possible forms and conditions 
ander which they might be created and constituted; and as He is 
all-wise and all-mighty, He must have selected, in his actual cre- 
ation-, the best possible forms and conditions of such beings. In 
i I constituting free agents under the best possible forms 
and conditions, He, as omniscient, must have foreseen all the 
actions, which in the e» rcise of their I'vcc agency they would cer- 
tainly | • ' orm, and among these He must have foreseen, likewise, 
their sinful actions. 

}inful actions being those which violate and transgress the 
laws of rectitude, which God approves and loves with all the 
energy of his nature, can not in themselves, or in any point of 



The Human Will. 77 

view, be pleasing to Him. They are incidental to a system of 

creation which He approves, but then they are incidental evils. 

"If God conceived of a system <>f free agency, in which Be 
foresaw that these incidental evils would not take place, still this 
system must have been known to Him, on souk* other accounts, 
not to be the best system ; for, if in all respects a system of free 
agency without these incidental evils had been conceived of as 
the best system, an infinitely good and wise Being must have 
projected it. 

"These evils, incidental to a system of free agency, God could 
not, by the very hypothesis, prevent. They are incidental to it. 
To say that God could have prevented them, and yet have consti- 
tuted the system as it is, is a plain absurdity. " — pp. 254, 255. 

We would be disposed to believe, if we did not know the con- 
trary, that the above quotations were copied from the arguments 
of the Necessitarians, to be afterwards refuted. Certainly no Ne- 
cessitarian ever expressed the doctrine of Universal Necessity aris- 
ing from the will of God, in stronger terms. 

God must have foreseen the best system [not might have fore- 
seen or not foreseen], He must have selected the best system [not 
might have selected or not selected], He must have foreseen all the 
actions of men,, — even their sinful actions — which were incidental 
to this system, and which He knew would certainly come to pass, 
with such infallibility that He could not prevent them, if He se- 
lected the system which He has selected, and which He must have 
selected, there being no other better system to select. 

The description here given by the author of the relation between 
the volition of God and the future actions of men, including even 
their sinful actions, corresponds exactly with the Necessitarian notion 
of cause and effect. The Necessitarians belie ve that the connection 
between cause and effect is so firm that they never can be separated — 
that is, with the cause the effect will certainly come to pass, without 
the cause the effect will certainly not come to pass. And they be- 
lieve that this connection depends on the perfections oi God. Now 
the paragraphs above contain the idea as plainly as if expressed in 
direct terms, that with the volition of God to create the present uni- 
verse the wicked actions and volitions of men would certainly come 
to pass, and without the volition (A' < rod to create the present universe 
the wicked actions of men would certainly not come to pass. They 
also contain the idea that with the perfections o( the Deity the voli- 



M V Human Will. 

ate the presold universe would certainly be pra1 forth, and 
without tin 4 perfections of the Deity tin' volition to create die present 

universe would certainly no! be put forth. Tims all events are traced 
the infinite perfections of ( tod ; and as these perfections are not 

events — that is, did not begin to exist. — they have no antecedent, 
but existed necessarily from all eternity, uncaused. 

fficient causes we knew nothing. It may he that there i* hut 
•it — that is, the great First Cause. Those antecedents which 
invariably precede their sequents, which we call causes, art certainly 
- nut the efficient causes ; as the want of food, followed in- 
variably with the pain of hunger. A mere negative or nonentity can 
ill- cause <>t" anything. The efficient cause is undoubtedly some 
positive entity, producing constant change in the body, which always 
results in pain When food is not used for a certain length of time. 
And yet, though we do not know the efficient cause of pain in this 
instance, we have to more doubt that there is a cause than in those 
- thai are preceded by positive entities. 
( ha belief that an event has a cause, and must have a cause, does 
not arise from the uniformity with which we see it follows another 
event ; for if we saw- it preceded every time of its occurrence by a dif- 
ferent nt, we wotald believe still that it had the same cause 

uniformly preceding it, which we had not yet discovered.' 

We know not whether God has or has not given power to antece- 

to be the efficient causes of the events which uniformly follow 

them ; hut this we know, that if lie has, the chain of causes and 

ts, when traced upwards, must terminate in God, whose perfec- 

events, and therefore uncaused. For, as it is a funda- 

al truth that everything which begins to exist must have a cause, 

is a fundamental truth that what did not begin to exist can not 

b cause. Besides, if invariable antecedents are not efficients, 

nay, for aught we know, be indispensable means, by which God 

- the efficient cause. Indeed, in many cases, it would 

in a contradiction to say, God could have produced 

Sect, without using the very means employed. How 

could Solomon have keen Solomon, unless he had keen horn of 

I and Bath-sheba? Are! yet no one believes that David and 

Bath the efficient cause of Solomon. God was as truly 

the Creator of Solomon as Ife was of Adam and Eve. 

Though God has een prdper to conceal from our view the opera- 
tion of efl and has not permitted us at present to know 



The Human Will. 79 

whether there arc any but the first great Cause himself, yei He has 
given enough to furnish the means of knowledge suited to out state, 
in the uniformity of sequences, both in the world of mind and in the 
world of matter. It fully answers our purpose in reasoning to call 
by the name <>f cause that antecedent with which the event takes 

place, and without which it does not take place. For example, we 

call a desire, with its accompanying belief that the desire may be 
gratified without evil, the cause of the following volition merely be* 
cause our experience teaches us that volition invariably follows. Now 
the desire and accompanying belief are not the efficient cause of the 

volition ; for as they themselves could not exist without a mind, so 
neither could they produce a volition without a mind. It is much 
more probable that the mind is the efficient cause of the volition, 
than that the desire which precedes it is the cause. Yet, as the 
mind may exist without the desire, but the desire can not exist 
without the mind, we speak of the desire being the cause of the 
volition — or, at least, the sine qua non — of the mind's becom- 
ing efficient. If the Deity has constituted the mind as the real 
efficient cause (which we have no means of knowing), then, on 
this supposition, He has also arranged it so that the mind always 
becomes efficient when the desire, and belief that the desire may be 
gratified without evil, are in the mind, and never becomes efficient 
when they are not in the mind. 

So, though the efficient cause of gravitation probably does not 
reside in the sun, yet as with the sun the efficient cause of gravita- 
tion acts according to a fixed law, and without the sun it would 
not act, by assuming the sun to be the cause, all our deductions 
as to the motions of the planets are as correct as if we knew the 
real efficient cause ; for it is only when the sun is present that 
the real cause becomes efficient, and, as far as we know, can be- 
come efficient. So, if volition is not the efficient cause of volun- 
tary motions in our bodies, God has so arranged that the real 
cause never acts or becomes efficient without volition, and with 
volition it always does act. Indeed, it seems much more proba- 
ble that the mind itself is the efficient cause of voluntary motion, 
than that volition, a mere phenomenon of mind, should be ; and, 
if so, it would seem that the effort which the mind is conscious of 
in operating on body, is called volition, just as the operation of 
body on mind is called sensation. 

It is curious and interesting to read the author's views on this 



Human }\llt. 

[lis theory of contingency rendered it necessary for him 

-it a new psychology. According bo this new theory, of all 

the phenomena of the mind, sensations and volitions only are 

effia ts. u The sensations are effects of physical causes \ the voli- 

th< power of the mind, called will, The de- 

and emotions are not effects: they are evidently 

not - of the will, nor of physical causes, and if they be effects 

at all. the causation which produces them must lie either in the 

substance of the sensitivity itself, or in the cognitions of the intel- 

ligence which always precedes them, or in both. But if we grant 

this causality to lie in the sensitivity or in cognitions, then we 

causality from the will, where we had concentrated it, and 

dig] ally through the whole mental faculties, and even 

through the mental phenomena ; we destroy the very distinctions 

to which our previous investigations had conducted us" [and 

then our theory could not stand J. 

Aft ing various reasons, the author comes to this con- 

clusion, that " the relation of the intelligence to its cognitions, 
and the relation of the sensitivity to the desires, emotions and 
passions, is the relation of substance and its attributes, inasmuch 
as these attributes are its necessary developments. We can not 
conceive of the substance without these attributes or manifesta- 
tion-, nor can we conceive of the manifestations without the sub- 
stance. In will, we conceive of simply a power to do or not to 
without affixing to it any necessary attributes or manifesta- 
tion^."* 

The chief reason assigned by the author for this conclusion is, 

that " all the different forms of* cognition are really a development 

that which existed before. The primitive judgments existed in 

the capacity of tie- reason; and tin.' emotions, and passions, and 

. have a necessary existence in the capacity or potentiality 

sensitivity, then; being, in these faculties, no potentiality to 

know and feel differently from what they do know and feel." 

•• Km, with the will, every volition is a new creation. It had no 

itil it actually appealed, inasmuch as it appeared under 

an equal possibility of the very opposite volition ; it had no exist- 

'•ic i 11 ting potentiality of the will." 

Now, it nrould appear from this psychology, that the author 

there are several different substances in the mind, having 

each different attributes or properties ; and as " we can not con- 



The Human Will. Bl 

oeive of the substance withoul the manifestations," it will follow, 
also, that these substances were created ai different times ; for as 
there were no manifestations of the passions and desires till after 
the cognitions appeared, if follows thai the substance of the sen- 
sitivity, of which \\ir passions and desires are the manifestatio 
could not exist until after the existence of the substance of the 
intelligence, of which the cognitions arc the manifestations. 
Again, as the cognitions of the intelligence do not appear till 

after the sensations derived from the senses, it follows that the 
substance of the intelligence is created after the substance to which 
the sensations belong ; and as the substance to which the sensa- 
tions belong was created before the appearance of the cognitions, 
and the substance to which the passions and desires belong was 
created after the appearance of the cognitions (292), it follows 
that there must be one substance for the sensations and another 
for the passions and desires ; for if it is the same substance, it 
would have to be created both before and after the appearance of 
the cognitions, which is absurd. It appears to me, that by the 
same mode of reasoning we would infer that there is another sub- 
stance of the will, of which volition is the phenomenon or mani- 
festation, created after all the rest; for the phenomenon of volition 
does not appear till after cognitions and desires both appear. But 
the author will not allow that will has any necessary attributes 
or manifestations, and, of. course, is not a substance. According 
to his idea of will, it might put forth no volition at all ; for every 
time it does put forth a volition, it has an equal potentiality to 
put forth none : as " the relation between cause and effect is one 
of contingency and freedom ; and any given cause may be thought 
of as having potentiality to effects, but without being connected 
with any particular effects as its necessary manifestations " (293). 
If these deductions are just, from the doctrine that cognitions, and 
passions and desires arc not effects, but properties of substances, 
the doctrine itself must be unsound ; and the author himself ac- 
knowledges, that " if he grants that effects are produced by any 
power of the mind except the will, the very distinctions to which 
his previous investigations had conducted him are destroyed." 
Besides, we are conscious of making efforts in the exercise oi' the 
reason, and in the creations of the imagination, as well as in the 
putting forth of volitions; and that theory can hardly be tine 
which maintains that Milton, when his imagination created the 
6 



ii Human Will 

. made no effort, and produced qo effect except by 
hat the inventor of the steam engine made no effort 
imagining it- various parts and the principles of its 
open I produced no effects but volitions. Indeed, I think 

ain that no one would ev^r have imagined that sen- 
us and volitions were effects, and passions, and emotions, and 
g, and beliefs, and imaginings and cognitions not effects, 
driven to ii to support a favorite theory. Now the 
. as the foundation of freedom, is considered 
thor .-is ro important, that he says (p. 1 7i2, corrected in 
the ei he were obliged to do either, be would rather give 

up the prescience of God Mian his freedom; meaning, by his free- 
dom, thai tb ire is an equal potentiality in his will to do good and 
to do evil, though in doing evil he would be acting in opposition 
to all motives furnished by his intelligence and goodness. Such 
ii called by the proper name, would be denominated weak- 
ness, and could not belong to God, unless his knowledge was so 
that there would be an even chance that one half of his 
ts should be right and the other half wrong, and one half 
of In- desires right and the other half wrong ; which can not be, if 
God i in wisdom and goodness, for the author agrees with 

rians in this, that the desires of God are of neces- 
sity iufinil I. Now, to say that God can will contrary to 
ifinitely good desires, is the same as to say thai God can will 
to make Himself both wicked and miserable — which is as absurd 
I can annihilate Himself; and yet the author will 
up the infinite wisdom of God rather than give up the power 
(weal . making himself both wicked and miserable. But 
►Hence would the will of God possess, with the 
potentiality of committing evil, than without the potentiality? 
Can there be conceived a greater and more excellent power than a 
>od? Must this power be united with a power 
| to i evil, to entitle it. to any moral excellence? The 
author ai hi question in the affirmative. According to 
him, litions of God arise necessarily from his infinite wis- 
dom i ire to do g >od, which are themselves necessary, 
i i Deity is not a free agent, and has no 
moral Set the author acknowledges that the 

not the less excellent on account of 
having no potentiality to commit mistakes ; nor the infinite good- 



The Human Will. 






Qess of God less excellent on account of nol j g the poten- 

tiality of forming <le.sircs for the production of evil. Why should 
the divine Will be less excellent, <>n account of possessing no poten- 
tiality to form < i \il volitions V 

Bui suppose, with the author, that Q-od really j i this 

power, what would be its use? What good would it do to will that 
every sensation of the whole human race should be pain, and ev< 
thought a horror, and that, too, contrary to his infinite desire to 
make them happy ? for even this horrible supposition, according 
to the teaching of the author, might become a reality ; and that, 
too, though God had promised to mankind that He would be mer- 
ciful and kind to them forever. If the Will had not power to 
break all promises, express and implied, and alter all determina- 
tions previously made by itself, and that, too, contrary to the 
infinite desire of preserving truth inviolate, it would not be free, 
and moral agency would be impossible. 

Any doctrine from which it may be fairly deduced that the 
above suppositions may become realities, can not be true. Let 
the reader judge whether the deduction is fairly made or not. 

But it will be said, and, in fact, is said, by the author, that 
though the Will of God has equal power to do good and to do 
evil, it is certain that it will never be directed towards the evil ; 
as certain as that physical causes are followed uniformly by their 
effects. If you ask him how he knows this, when the potentiality 
of the will is equal both ways — he draws his answer from the doc- 
trine of Necessity ; thus adopting the very doctrine that he is en- 
deavoring to refute, and tacitly acknowledging that the doctrine 
of Contingency furnishes no answer. 



When the author forgot his syett n. he said 
what is bdow. 

When God created moral agents. lie 
must have selected the; best system that 
infinite wisdom could contrive, ;;- lie is 
all-wise and almighty. 

If God had conceived of a better sys- 
tem of moral agents than (lie present, 

being infinitely good and wise, He mutt 
have projected it. 



When the author thought of his system, ht 
said wliAxt is h( low. 

When God created moral agents, lie 
might have selected the worst system, 

instead of tin 1 best, from the equal po- 
tentiality oi' bis will to do good or to 
do evil. 

Ef God bad conceived of a 
tern of moral agent- than the present, 

He might not have chosen it. but some 
other worse one, from the equal poten- 
tiality of his will to do good or to do 
evil. 



B 



FJutnan Will. 



omnis< Lent muai 

■ i all the r\ il volitions 
tally 1 

I not It pre 
I 



tnisoienl fon knew that nil 
future u ill oerta inly come to 

certainty is resolved into 
inty when we consider | hj 
in relation to the divine 

1 - iih infinite 

'v ail moral an.! physical i \ ents. 

ince of tin' will I i the ; a 

ral in the indn idual 

i al in the raci of m( a, 

that we are impress< 1 with it< uniform- 

rhe law of this obedience is eor- 

stem of Edwards : 

"The will ia as the most agreeable." 

ft i- true, also, that hi' who calculates 

iint in any given circum- 

>ording to this rule, will 

lly reach an accurate result. — p. 



1 1 God adopted the present system 

ot* moral agents, He as omnis< ient must 

•reseon that all the e\ il volitions 

which aotuallv take piaoe, would oer 

lainly lake plaoe : yet thai Ihrv could 

be prevented, by the equal potentiality 

<>f the will i^\ man to do good or to do 

I Nil. 

God as omnisoient foreknow that all 
future volitions mighl certainly not 

come to pass. 

1 1 IS not true as a fad, that the same 

kind and degree of certainty prevail in 

mental causes, 01 in the production Of 

volitions, as in physical causes, or the 

production of material phenomena. — p. 
264. 

If we characterize the governance of 
the will merely from our observations 
of the succession of desires and voli- 
, and this succession is one of in- 
variable uniformity, it would be natu- 
ral and legitimate to characterize it as 
a nceessary governance, aecording to 
the analogy of physical phenomena in 
succession (20.")) ; and so it would bo 
characterized, but for consciousness. 



[f ii be asked how the will, being a 
• li; its oa1 are, can act 
;;• ace to ike interests of the be- 
• :. i reply, that when we distinguish 
i facu i< pi • do not sepa- 
vrU, The \\ ill i- so condi- 
itfl relation! to the other facul- 
,\ in the unity oftfo mind, that it 
action, anh bs .- applied 
. and induce- 
on and the 

: and when the same act i 
I by the reason and 
2 . . we hare moral oer 
of the vott- 

Let the will he distinguished as pure 
>e conceived 



I experience strong convictions in my 
reason, and strong impulses or repug- 
uances in my sensitivity; but, most 
clearly, these affections in other i><<ris of 
my being do not go to make up a, voli- 
tion. 1 feel that I can will against all 
motives presented, whether by reason 
or sensitivity, let the, motives be in- 

d lo ever such a- degree, and in 

making the volition, there is no resist- 

01 ercome, no opposing force what- 
ever (89, 00;. 



The will now, under an obscured 
reason and a corrupted sensitivity, is 



The Human Will. 

than indifferent. Will called upon to I If for the dia- 

is not the faculty of thought or feeling, persion of 1 1 * « - darkness and the finding 
and therefore il ia indifferent In Ltsvery of the one Law (301). ! cultj 

nature (300). without thought or feeling can be called 

upon t«» and anything, i- uof explain- 

ed.] 

[f the faculty of the Will is, as the author bas characterized it 
(300), destitute of thoughl and feeling, (and I am not disposed 
to controvert it,) so far from its being itself kh< very personality, 
and the only power of the mind which produces effects, it is only 
a nice piece of mental machinery, contrived by Grod to enable the 
sensitivity and tin* reason, by its instrumentality, to execute the 
wishes of the one and the designs of the other. But be this as it 
may, there is another view of the subject, which, 1 think, alone 
decides the question in favor of necessity, and against contingency. 
The author says correctly (p. 297), " The phenomena of the 
reason and the sensitivity supply the will with objects, laws, rules, 
and aims of action. Without these, action would be impossible, 
not for want of a cause of action, but for the want of something to 
do : just as perception would be impossible without objects, not 
for want of a perceiving faculty \ but for the want of something to 
perceive." And again ( p. 314 ), "Reason and sensitivity sup- 
ply the objects and aims of action ; Will is the power to act in 
any of the revealed directions." 

This is a great truth, stated with clearness in various other 
places by the author, and, I think, it never can be successfully 
controverted. Now, to illustrate the application of this truth, 
suppose that the Reason and the sensitivity, in harmony, should 
supply the will with an object and aim of some particular action — 
eating food, for instance, by a hungry man ; we may suppose the 
man very hungry, and the food presented very pleasant to the 
taste and known to be very wholesome. The object and aim sup- 
plied to the Will, in this case, are to gratify the appetite and pre- 
serve the life and health of the hungry man. The Reason and 
sensitivity supply the Will with no object nor aim to withhold the 
volition to eat ; much less do they supply it with an object and 
aim of eating arsenic instead of bread: i( follows, then, (if "the 
Will is the power to act in any of the revealed directions," and if 
without aims and objects its action is impossible,) that, in this 
case, the Will can not withhold the volition to cat the savory, 
wholesome food; nor can it put forth the volition to eat the 



\ Human Will. 

pplicd with qo aim 8 nor objects of eil her of I hese 
i. • is no direction revealed, bui the direction to eat 
• I. The Will can not even think of any other direc- 
. and, if reminded of it by another person, Btill Reason and 
j continue to present the same object ami aim, and no 
o there. Edwards Bays, in illustration of bis views, that "a wo; 
honor and chastity may have tin 1 moral inability to 
itute herself to her slaw." Our author, not being able to 
admit this, in consistency with his theory, says : " Now 1 appeal 
one, do we not believe that this woman, with all her pure 
and honorable reelings, has still the ability in her personality, or 
will, to determine to do it. We feel certain that she will not do 
it. but the certainty i^ not the result of a, barrier of necessity, but 
: determination" — pp. 209, 210. How a certainty should 
from her determination before the determination existed, is 
^plained. N<>w, in this case, reason and sensitivity supplied 
only the object and aim to preserve her purity of mind and body, 
whatever to part with it ; and, as the author says truly, 
11 that the will can not act without an object or aim furnished by 
tic reason and sensitivity," it follows that, in these circumstances, 
she could not will to prostitute herself. Besides, to say, as the 
author does, that tin's woman, with all her pure and honorable 
'-nld will to prostitute herself to her slave, is a contradic- 
tion i : for pure and honorable feelings are incompatible 
with willingness to prostitute herself. 

Another example given by Edwards is, " A child of great love 
and duty to his parents may be unable to hill his rather." This 
the author denies on the same ground as before. 

Let . try here, for a moment, without going over the former 

ning, how the theory will work in practice, provided it. is true. 

, -on of great love and duty to his parents should, from 

equal potentiality of his will to good and evil actions," will to 

thrust the heart of his father, at the vevy moment when 

ire to be kind and dutiful, and when Ins " moral 

hocked and disgusted with (195) the volition and its 

equent" — how could we estimate the moral character of 

mi, the internal feelings as well as the externa] act 

■ and sensitivity supplied the will with 

of kindness, and furnished no aims of murder. All the motives 

The very statement shows that the imaginary 



The Human Will. ^ 

son is a monster, such as can n ( >! exist in the creation of God; and 
it is as absurd to ask the moral character of such a being as to ask 

what kind of a in;in Solomon would have been if he had been born 
of a different mother. Would he have been wise or foolish; would 
he have been a male or female ? " 

But, says the author, " if the son had ao power to will to kill his 
father; it* kind actions necessarily proceeded from kind feelii 
which were themselves necessary — then he was not a tree agent, and 
his kind volitions had in them nothing morally good, nothing praise- 
worthy, nothing deserving happiness as their reward. II" any praise 
is duo, it belongs of right to the contriver, and not to the contrived. 
So if a son has iindntil'iil and unkind rebellious feelings towards his 
father, and no sense of duty to restrain them, and if from this state of 
mind volitions to act unkindly necessarily spring up, so that the will 
lias no power (while these unkind and rebellious feelings remain and 
the moral sense continues dormant) to put forth volitions to act 
kindly and dutifully, from its equal potentiality to do good and to do 
evil, then the son is not a free agent, and his unkind volitions have 
in them nothing morally evil, nothing to be found fault with, noth- 
ing deserving unhappiness as their consequence. If any fault is in 
the ease at all, it belongs to the contriver, and not to the contrived." 

These positions are not announced by the author in the words ] 
have used above, but they seem to me to be taken for granted in his 
whole system as elementary truths, which need no demonstration. 
Now, so far from these being elementary truths, believed by every- 
body, it requires no great ingenuity to show that they are not truths 
at all, and that they are believed by nobody. 

First, as to free agency. It consists in the liberty of willing as we 
please. No one with full and perfect liberty ever did or ever can will 
contrary to his pleasure (including always under the term pleasure all 
the feelings of the sensitivity and the dictates of reason.) To will 
or do contrary to our pleasure is considered from our early childhood 
incompatible with perfect liberty. 

It is the liberty or free agency of God to have a power to will as 
He pleases, without any restraint whatever. And 1 have never yet 
heard of any one but the author who maintains that God can will 
contrary to his own infinite desire to do good, and that without that 
power He would not be a free agent, and so have no moral excellence 
whatever. 

The author appeals to consciousness as a proof that we have the 



The Human Will. 

will contrary to our desires and the dictates of our moral 

combined. Did he ever make the experiment? II* 1 Bays* 

dutiful and affectionate bod can will t<> kill his father. If he makes 

tin 1 experiment, he will find he can n<> m<>iv will to do bo, contrary 

t<» his strong <1< sires i<- do no harm to his father, than he can move 

hifi will, lie ran not even try to move his hand 

• his w ill, nor ran he try to w ill contrary to his desire. If 

he has a wife in the bloom of youth and beauty, on whom he doats 

with the most nndcr affection, in whose conjugal fidelity and love for 

him he lias the fullest confidence, lei him try to will to use force t<> 

itute her to her slave, and he will find from his utter inability 

that his theory of the equal potentiality of the will to do good 

• evil, even when all tin 1 feelings of the sensitivity and 

be reason are in favor of the good, is utterly false. 

N ie i; true that the necessary dependence of will on the de- 

ol the understanding destroys free agency and 

all Hi tellence, either in fact or in our estimation. Con- 

vince tic lather that the affection of- his son for him, and his sense 

of duty, are bo strong that it is utterly impossible for him to put 

forth a volition t<. ad unkindly, or intend to give the father the 

pain : would the father's estimation of his son's moral ex- 

cellence immediately on tin's conviction dwindle to naught? 

W aid tla' lathe]- immediately look on his son as a mental ma- 

chine, unworthy of any moral approbation, undeserving of any 

happi tpany or to Follow the practice of kind 

rhich aro jarily out of kind feelings and a high sense 

of duty, which if was impossible for him not to have, from the 

Grod had given him, and the manner in which he had hecn 

circumstances in which he had been placed, 

without his knowledge or consent? Would not rather the 

alt with joy, to become assured that all his pa- 

terna had not been in vain, and that he might now 

•• of the affections of his child? and would not his 

i i ■';. burn with a holier (lame when 

cnplated his wisdom and goodness in not leaving the pro- 
duct! ellence to the operation of contingent causes, 
hut | certain as those of the physical world? If yon 

him, on the- other hand, that all the hind and 

iil conduct of bis son did not proceed from affection, but 
from a contingent power of the will, possessing equal potentiality 



The Human Will. 89 

to kindness and to rebellion, how would his h.-art -ink within 
him to discover that what be bad taken for the manifestation of 
solid virtue and permanent moral excellence, was the result of 
mere contingency, which might change the next moment from 
kindness to cruelty, from dntiful obedience to insolent rebellion! 
[s the author a father, what response does bis heart give to tb 
questions ? 

Or suppose one to be t lie husband of a young, and beautiful, 
and pure, and affectionate wife, whom he loves with tender and 
undivided ailed ion : would his estimation of her virtue and mora] 
excellence be diminished in the least by becoming perfectly con- 
vinced that her love of virtue, and of purity of mind and body, 
and the high estimation she had for the sacred, nature of the con- 
jugal union, and the unspeakable horror and disgust she felt at 
the thought of prostituting herself to her slave, all combined to 
lender it impossible for her to will so abhorrent an act ? Would 
he immediately view her as a mere mental machine, utterly devoid 
of any moral exeellence, entitled to no happiness either to accom- 
pany or to follow these feelings which she could not prevent. 
worthy of no approbation either of her own moral sense or that 
of her husband, unless she possessed the only true ground of free 
agency, an equal potentiality of will to preserve her purity and 
self-respect, or to give herself up to prostitution and self-degrada- 
tion ? Let the affectionate husband of a virtuous wife answer 
these questions, and the doctrine of necessity of will over that of 
contingency will prevail. 

There is one principle, also, which the author himself lavs down 
as a truth which can not be denied, from which the doctrine of Ne- 
cessity in these cases may fairly be deduced. It is, as stated before, 
that the w 7 ill can not act Avithout objects and aims furnished by the 
sensitivity and the reason. Now here, in the case of the wile. 
no objects nor aims were furnished by either to prostitute herself: 
every object and aim was to preserve her purity. It follows, 
therefore, that the will could not put forth a volition to prostitute 
herself. 

So in case of the affectionate and dutiful son : no objects m>r 
aims were supplied to his will to unkind, disobedient acts, much 
less to murder his father; therefore, such a volition could not be 
put forth by the will. 

So far, then, from there being in these cases an equal poten- 



Human Will. 

tiality in the will to do good and to do evil, there was no poten: 

| al all to do ei il. To will to do good proceeds 

: to will to do e> il proceeds from weakness. 

\ - do our moral approbations and disapprobations spring up 

only towards those things which we believe might have been 

avoided, by the equal potentiality of the will to do good and to 

these approbations and disapprobations are directed 

rards things over which I In 1 will has no direct control. Ji" 

so obedient to his father, and should perform 

all tli which arc expected by a reasonable father from a son, 

ami it should be discovered thai the son, instead of having kind 

Is his father, and a desire to promote his happiness, 

had 1. iidl of ill-will, and a constant desire to see his father 

might inherit his estate, or from any other bad mo- 

instead of our moral approbation rising up in favor of his 

ong moral disapprobation would spring np in every 

gainst his unkind feelings and evil desires, which we all 

. i ven tin 1 author himself, to be under the law of Necessity, 

andd< all depend immediately on the Will, whether the Will 

has an eq ntiality to do good and to do evil, or not. Thus 

it will be found, by an examination of other moral conduct, that 

approbation and disapprobation, our estimate of moral excel- 

and moral def ct, do not stop at the external action, nor at 

i 11 which produces it, but go back to the desires and 

or, which arc known to he under the law of Ne- 

id which, notwithstanding all the author says to the 

contrary, are universally believed to give rise to the volitions 

tin mseh 

B • is - Qtinually asked of the Necessitarian, with an air of 
triumph, Why find fault with anyone for that which he could not 
avoid '.' I' seems to be taken lor granted, as a self-evident truth, 
lird, unjust, ,'i n<l altogether useless, to find fault with 
: that which it never was in Ins power to avoid. Now, 
if this i- a truth, then it will follow that we are all guilty of ab- 
sd injustice alike; lor we all, the author as well as others, 
fault with evil desires and evil passions, much more 
than with evil volitions. And yet the author maintains through- 
out hi- work that the passions and desires arise necessarily out of 
nd could not be different from what they are. Now, 
no right to expeei an answer to this question from 



The Human Will. M 

the Necessitarian, any more than the Necessitarian has b righ< to 
expert an answer from him. Notwithstanding, 1 think a com; 
plete and satisfactory answer can be given to it on Necessitarian 
principles. Let us attempt it : 

First, it will not be denied thai some of our neighbor's pas- 
sions and desires are faulty ; and second, thai God has bo formed 
ns that we can see those faults, or know they exist, by external 

signs; and also, that lie has 80 formed us that, on seeing them, 

we feel a sentiment of disapprobation. If the question " Why 

find fault" means, what object have we in view when we find a 
fault in our neighbor, and feel disapprobation, the answer is, we 
have no objeet in view ; for this discovery of our neighbor's fault, 
and feeling of disapprobation accompanying the discovery, do 
not arise from our determination, but from the constitution of our 
nature, as involuntarily as any of our other judgment- or sensa- 
tions. 

The question, then, " Why do we find fault/' etc., can only 
mean, what object had God in view, when He constituted us so 
that we find or see our neighbor's faults, even those that do not 
depend on his Will, and so that we feel a moral disapprobation of 
them as soon as they are found. 

No finite intelligence can comprehend and explain all the ob- 
jects an infinitely w T ise Being had in view when He constituted 
our moral and intellectual nature ; but this far we can understand, 
that every contrivance belonging to it plainly leads to an increase 
of knowledge and virtue — and none more so than seeing moral 
defects or faults ; and feeling disapprobation of them. Every such 
operation of mind increases our moral strength or virtue, and leaves 
our moral being less defective than it was before. It advances 
our creation towards perfection. When we are born our moral 
and intellectual creation is just begun. We are then one entire 
deficiency, having no knowledge, no virtue, or moral power, no 
feeling of moral, approbation or disapprobation. AW' are an utter 
blank. How God operates to inaugurate feeling and thought, we 
know not; but after they are begun, we see plainly that lie lias 
laid his plans so that our creation can not fail to advance to 
entire completion. 

I have frequently heard it asked how anything can come out oi^ 
the hands of an infinitely wise and holy Creator, defective in any 
manner? The mistake is, to suppose that the first man's area- 



V Human 117//. 

ti«»n i 1 at once, and thai our creation is completed at 

birth; whereas it is then we begin to be in the hands o( God for 

creation. Hie infinite perfections of Sod justify as in believing 

thai I will put any pari of his creation out of his creating 

incomplete or defective. Nor is this conclusion derived 

in what appears to as due to the perfections of God; 

I likewise to Bee that a plan lias been adopted by 

G himself, from which out complete creation in knowledge, vir- 

and happiness, will be secured. What this plan is lias 

. shown (pp. 82, 65), and if there was no otheT proof 

ofth >f God than this plan, full oi' so many beautiful and 

• contrivances, this alone would produce perfect convic* 
tion in any mind comprehending it. iToreven if we could suppose 
that something could spring into existence out of nothing — that 
i^. without a cause (which is itself infinitely absurd and impos- 
sible) — Btill, even then, there would be an infinite number of 
. bat blind Chance would not produce a system 
ig the most beautiful arrangement and harmony of parts, 
a- if it proceeded from the highest intelligence. 

it will be -aid ihat u finding fault" is not merely cliscover- 

_ >ur neighbor's faults, and feeling a moral disapprobation of 

them, fi;t expressing that disapprobation in the form of blame, 

plainly implying that we think the person blamed had it in his 

to avoid Hi" thing- for which he is blamed. It is urged 

this must be 80 J for it has become a maxim with all men, 

even the X" sessitarians t hem sel ves, that "A man ought not to be 

blamed for what he can not avoid.'' This maxim is undoubtedly 

tood and practiced upon by all. When written 

Mm ambiguity, it is as follows : " A person ought 

i be blamed for what he can not avoid if he pleases;" that is, 

if he or desired to avoid a thing, and could not, then it was 

not his fault, hut if his want of power to avoid it depended on 

the want of desire to avoid it, then it was his fault. The disap- 

: d of out moral sense springs up in a moment, when we 

ii;i? the person's desires were in favor of the evil act, 

and we do not -top io inquire whether those desires were necessary 

Moreover, the stronger the desire to do the blame* 

worthy act, tie- higher dor- our disapprobation rise, whether we 

. oi- advocates of contingency. 

!• ' Wonderful that an acute logician should bring forward the 



The Human Will Ml 

common mode of speaking, concerning crimes committed — "The 
criminal might have avoided committing the crime if be had 
pleased" — as a proof of the universal belief thai the agent has the 
unconditional power of avoiding all criminal acts, and all good 

acts, too, when the very expression contains a condition implying 

the doctrine of Necessity as strongly as ii' it asserted that the 
crime could not be avoided under the circumstances. 

If the common people say that any son of competent bodily 
strength can murder his lather it* he pleases, certainly they do not 
mean that he can do it if he does not please. On the contrary, it 
logically means that he can not do it if he does not please. And to 
a man not drilled in metaphysics, it would appear as absurd to 
say he could do it if he did not please, as to say he could do it 
if he did not will to do it ; for it never enters into any man's 
mind to will contrary to his own pleasure. (I wish it always to 
be understood that I mean by pleasure, as here used, all the pleas- 
ure we derive from the gratification of our senses, of our pas- 
sions, of our appetites, and of our moral sense.) 

The gratification of the moral sense, in the very early part of 
our existence, forms no part of our pleasure ; for as yet the moral 
sense is not created : and even after God has begun to create it, 
we often think that the gratification of the appetites will be more 
pleasant than the gratification of the moral sense. The correction 
of this mistake is gradually made, as the work of creation goes 
on, by our own experience, and by the testimony of others. This 
is the means which God employs to create our moral sense up to 
such perfection and strength that it becomes forever after the un- 
disputed ruler of all our moral conduct. If this seldom or never 
occurs in this life, w r e are still sure that in our continued existence 
we will be under the same divine and benignant administration 
that we are under here ; and the unchangableness of the divine 
perfections affords us the most consolatory evidence that a plan 
so wisely and beneficently contrived, and so undeviatinglv prose- 
cuted during our whole lives, will not be abandoned in the next 
life until it is brought to complete perfection. 

But it will still be said, Suppose it is true that the externa] act 
arises necessarily from the volition, the volition from the desire, the 
desire from the too high estimate we make of the value ^( the object 
desired or the wrong estimate of the means U> attain tin 1 object, the 
wrong estimate from the want of sufficient reason to judge correctly, 



< Buman Will* 

- ifficient reason from out unfinished creation ; and sup 
God, with the purpose of strengthening our moral 
its creation towards completion, causes a feeling 
ofdisappi of any one of these particulars to spring up invol- 

untarily in our minds : what is the ase of giving expresion to that 
feeling in the form of blame, Rince all the particulars are but links 
in the chain of necessity, originating in God himself, and not one 
of which can 1 •* ^ broken or changed in the slightest degree, by any- 

g thai we can do or B 

I lis estion means, What utility have we in view when we 

isi 'i to our feelings of moral disapprobation, the an- 

various, according to our intelligence, and our feel- 

ness or unkindness towards the person blamed. If 

v."" have i 2 ■■ 1 r<>r him, our object will be merely the pleasure 

of letting others know our sentiments, or inducing them to be : 

that we would not be guilty of such conduct ourselves. If 

•1 ill-will towards him, a part of our object, at least, will be 

ive liiin pain, 

L ' it he our beloved child, or our dear friend, whose fault we 

discovered, and our object in expressing our disapprobation 

will I b to change the past, but to introduce new motives, 

which he would not otherwise have, to operate on the future, and 

; a n petition of the same conduct. This object corre- 

gactly with the doctrine of Necessity, which teaches that 

similar motives and similar circumstances, similar conduct 

. and with different motives and different circumstances, 

different conduct will ensue. This object corresponds also with 

of G in causing us to feed and express disapprobation. 

11" has so formed us that we consider the approbation of our 

fellow ' hly desirable object to obtain and preserve, and con- 

the expression of their disapprobation, as soon as known, 

tain to o] a new motive and a new desire, in opposi- 

-ijc which produced the preceding faulty conduct; 

orally improved, thus our creation is advanced. 

the fault found by an enemy without its use. G-od has 

. ' • !i in the early stagss of our creation, with a 

of moral excellence; and when a fault is made 

by ;in enemy, it is half removed. And it was 

h propriety, by a sage of antiquity, that to aid us 



The Human Will. 95 

in detecting our faults, we each need a true friend ora bitter enemy, 
as none l>ut these two have sufficient courage to tell us our faults. 

The question, however, may be fairly asked, though without any 
hope of a satisfactory answer, " What is the use of blame, or finding 
fault," if "the will retains an equal potentiality to do good and to do 
evil, without feeling the slightest resistance in overcoming the i 
motives introduced into the mind by the blame ,,-.,, ioned by the 
former conduct, however strong those motives may be " ? The I 
doctrine on this point appears to he, that there would be no use in 
expressing our moral disapprobation, if the person blamed could not 
avoid similar conduct in future by the introduction into his mind of 
new motives. It is the possibility of our faults being removed that 
renders the blame of them just and useful, and not at all the \> 
bility of our not having been faulty. Our being faulty depends on 
the unfinished state of our creation, and the removal of our faults 
depends on their discovery either by ourselves or others. Cod has 
placed our friends, and our enemies, too, in positions from which 
they can detect many of our faults or defects which escape our notice, 
and the very pain which we feel on the discovery of our faults be- 
comes, in the providence of God, a means of removing them. 

It maybe asked how a knowledge of our faults can tend to remove 
them, when the faults are in the desires, which do not depend on the 
will. True, our desires do not depend on our will, but they depend 
on our knowledge; our desire for any particular object is d< pendent 
on the estimate we make of its value, and when w r c discover that our 
estimate was erroneous, our desire changes, of course. And when 
our desires change, our volitions and conduct change with them. 
The judgment is invariably corrected on the discovery of a fault. 
And when our judgment shall be so far advanced in its creation as 
to form a correct estimate of the value of every object of pursuit, our 
desires for each object will be neither too strong nor too weak, and 
our volitions and conduct will correspond with our desires, and the 
advancement of our whole moral character will keep pace with the 
advancement of our judgment in truly estimating things. 



v. 








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